“ She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly - the thought of the world's concern at her situation - was founded on illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a st… Thomas Hardy
“ It takes two or three generations to do what I tried to do in one; and my impulses--affections--vices perhaps they should be called-- were too strong not to hamper a man without advantages; who should… Thomas Hardy
“ I have sometimes thought--that under the affectation of independent views you are as enslaved to the social code as any woman I know! Thomas Hardy
“ Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. Thomas Hardy
“ So do flux and reflux--the rhythm of change--alternate and persist in everything under the sky. Thomas Hardy
“ To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. Thomas Hardy
“ She had learned the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun. Thomas Hardy
“ Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal. Thomas Hardy
“ I may do some good before I am dead--be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story. Thomas Hardy
“ I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following inclination… Thomas Hardy
“ Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen anything to dislike. Thomas Hardy
“ ...there was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. Thomas Hardy
