Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight.
Thomas Hardy
If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.
Thomas Hardy
The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.
Thomas Hardy
Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.
Thomas Hardy
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
Thomas Hardy
Well: what we gain by science is, after all, sadness, as the Preacher saith. The more we know of the laws and nature of the Universe the more ghastly a business we perceive it all to be -- and the non-necessity of it.
Thomas Hardy
Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.
Thomas Hardy
Don't you go believing in sayings, Picotee: they are all made by men, for their own advantages. Women who use public proverbs as a guide through events are those who have not ingenuity enough to make private ones as each event occurs.
Thomas Hardy
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.