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
class dislike excessive mean parents regard
The excessive regard of parents for their children, and their dislike of other people's is, like class feeling, patriotism, save-your-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.
husband mean mind
Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband.
mean giving enemy
Give the enemy not only a road for flight, but also a means of defending it.
children mean thinking
The beggarly question of parentage--what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.
approach approaches curve directly doubtful grave less line reach seemed straight till
Indeed, he seemed to approach the grave as a hyperbolic curve approaches a straight line -- less directly as he got nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at all.
care deserving english-novelist everybody honour nowadays people remain talent talented
Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honour as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.
victim
Once victim, always victim -- that's the law!
snow spare till time waits
I need not go / Through sleet and snow / To where I know / She waits for me: / She will tarry there / Till I find it fair, / And have time to spare / From company.
love paths smile
Smile out; but still suffer: / The paths of love are rougher / Than thoroughfares of stones.
faith fire growing leaving march men night within
What of the faith and fire within us / Men who march away / Ere the barncocks say / Night is growing gray, / Leaving all that here can win us?
mind may tess-of-the-d-urbervilles
Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?
distance men
Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?
dreads elf final half lest maiden modest rise
There's not a modest maiden elf / But dreads the final Trumpet, / Lest half of her should rise herself, / And half some sturdy strumpet!
blinded thou
So zestfully canst thou sing? / And all this indignity, / With God's consent, on thee! / Blinded ere yet a-wing.