Thomas hardy quotes on happiness

“They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance of discovering in that way; and you did not help me!”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."
"Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.”
― Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

“Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“I shall do one thing in this life - one thing certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you.
-Gabriel Oak”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“But no one came. Because no one ever does.”
― Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

“Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”
― Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt with you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's morals almost more than unbridled passion--the craving to attract and captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man--was in me; and when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then--I don't know how it was-- I couldn't bear to let you go--possibly to Arabella again--and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you.”
― Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

“If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

“Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you, and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you will never know.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“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.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, feared at tea-parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”
― thomas hardy

“You have never loved me as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite-- not a woman!”
― Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

“I know women are taught by other women that they must never admit the full truth to a man. But the highest form of affection is based on full sincerity on both sides. Not being men, these women don't know that in looking back on those he has had tender relations with, a man's heart returns closest to her who was the soul of truth in her conduct. The better class of man, even if caught by airy affectations of dodging and parrying, is not retained by them. A Nemesis attends the woman who plays the game of elusiveness too often, in the utter contempt for her that, sooner or later, her old admirers feel; under which they allow her to go unlamented to her grave.”
― Thomas Hardy

“Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“You overrate my capacity of love. I don't posess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of me.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd