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
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.
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.
dawning next passing seemed somebody unknown
Who's in the next room? - who? / I seemed to see / Somebody in the dawning passing through,/ Unknown to me.
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.
condition english-novelist
There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn't there.
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
broad desires eyes hearts known open people red souls
If all hearts were open and all desires known -- as they would be if people showed their souls -- how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!
family flesh time trace trait
I am the family face; / Flesh perishes, I live on, / Projecting trait and trace / Through time to times anon, / And leaping from place to place / Over oblivion.
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?