My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own. – Thomas Hardy
Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you’d treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown. – Thomas Hardy
Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art. – Thomas Hardy
Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity. – Thomas Hardy
It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs. – Thomas Hardy
The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes. – Thomas Hardy
There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound. – Thomas Hardy
A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. – Thomas Hardy
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him. – Thomas Hardy
Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. – Thomas Hardy
A woman would rather visit her own grave than the place where she has been young and beautiful after she is aged and ugly. – Thomas Hardy
There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn’t there. – Thomas Hardy
The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years. – Thomas Hardy
The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. – 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
If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone. – Thomas Hardy
