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My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.

Thomas Hardy

The first cause worked automatically like a somnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage.
THOMAS HARDY

Reflection Work
So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope.
THOMAS HARDY

Distance Dreams Hope Privacy Soul Sun
The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.
THOMAS HARDY

Disappoint Fulfillment Hope Leaving Remove
Our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.
THOMAS HARDY

Judgement Ourselves Strong
To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.
THOMAS HARDY

Feature Tree Voice Wood
Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length.
THOMAS HARDY

Experience Intense Life Measurement
The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.
THOMAS HARDY

Avoid Evil Frame Impossible
That it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summertime!
THOMAS HARDY

Autumn Past Summer Thinking Time
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

Believe Capability Childhood Love Myself Nature Possession Protection
It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
THOMAS HARDY

Difficult Expression Feeling Language Man Woman
Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech.
THOMAS HARDY

Feeling Impression Power Remark Silence Soul Speech
Indifference to fate which, though it often makes a villain of a man, is the basis of his sublimity when it does not.
THOMAS HARDY

Fate Man Villain
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
THOMAS HARDY

Argument Custom Moral Poet
To be loved to madness–such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.
THOMAS HARDY

Desire Greatness Love Madness Passionate
Pessimism is playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child’s play.
THOMAS HARDY

Better Children Disappoint Game Life Lose Play Possible Worst
The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.
THOMAS HARDY

Hands Heart Herself Perfection Woman Work

My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.

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My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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