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But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.

Thomas Hardy

Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.
THOMAS HARDY

Constitution Herself Practice Principle Success
All romances end at marriage.
THOMAS HARDY

End Marriage One Liner Romance
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
THOMAS HARDY

Believe Deal Goodness Reality Strange
It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Bird Eyes Learning Sing Sweet Terrible
A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.
THOMAS HARDY

Love Lover
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
Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?
THOMAS HARDY

Distance Man See Woman
Women are so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplaced kindness.
THOMAS HARDY

Influence Kindness Strange Temptation Woman
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

Artist Execution Ideas Interest Myself Preference Skill Thinking Weakness Word
We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.
THOMAS HARDY

Color Creation Eyes Ourselves
If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.
THOMAS HARDY

Beginning Better Path Worst
Our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.
THOMAS HARDY

Judgement Ourselves Strong
Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Symbol
Some women’s love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can’t give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop’s license to receive it.
THOMAS HARDY

Generosity License Love Woman
Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.
THOMAS HARDY

Love One Liner Possible Strength Weakness
Some folk want their luck buttered.
THOMAS HARDY

Friendship Lucky One Liner
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

Burn Flame Heart Love Myself Passion Woman Yourself
The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.
THOMAS HARDY

Body Remark Sky Stars Time
Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.
THOMAS HARDY

Best Devotion Failure Greatness Kind Man Remember Selfish
It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness.
THOMAS HARDY

Happiness Imagination Pain Sleep
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

Comfortable Force Happiness Marriage Natural People Resistance
When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often then not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover.
THOMAS HARDY

Beginning Lover Secret Woman
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
If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.
THOMAS HARDY

Couple Love Marriage Relationship
But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.
THOMAS HARDY

Dreams Small Surround
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
I shall do one thing in this life-one thing certain-this is, love you, and long of you, and keep wanting you till I die.
THOMAS HARDY

Death Life Love Myself

But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.

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But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.

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Popular Authors

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