Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OMwas an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 June 1840
floors
Where once we danced, where once we sang, Gentlemen, / The floors are shrunken, cobwebs hang.
came dreaming nature offered peace release soft unto wood
Unto this wood I came As to a nest; Dreaming that sylvan peace Offered the harrowed ease- Nature a soft release From men's unrest
bring far mass million pay peace priests sing thousand
Peace upon earth!' was said. We sing it, / And pay a million priests to bring it. / After two thousand years of mass / We've got as far as poison-gas.
business gain ghastly laws nature perceive preacher science universe
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.
ages english-novelist poet
My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own.
cannot
No one can read with profit that which he cannot learn to read with pleasure.
english-novelist
If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.
cruelty english-novelist nature
Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would.
acquired emotion english-novelist measure poetry
Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.
argument good history peace poor rattling war
My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.
blending courage english-novelist physical
Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.
advanced avoid avoidance english-novelist far seldom till
A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.
condition english-novelist
There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there.
victim
Once victim, always victim -- that's the law!