It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.

Thomas Hardy

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You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted!
THOMAS HARDY

Black Earth Enough Happiness Life Security Sorrow 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
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
THOMAS HARDY

Afraid Heart Trouble
And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you.
THOMAS HARDY

Fire God Home Love Myself Yourself
Women are so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplaced kindness.
THOMAS HARDY

Influence Kindness Strange Temptation Woman
Women are attracted to silent men. They believe they are listening.
THOMAS HARDY

Attraction Listening Man Silence Woman
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
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
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
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
The first cause worked automatically like a somnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage.
THOMAS HARDY

Reflection Work
But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.
THOMAS HARDY

Dreams Small Surround
She was at that modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called having a fancy for. It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will.
THOMAS HARDY

Difference Fantasy Hands History Love Passion Weakness
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
To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.
THOMAS HARDY

Feature Tree Voice Wood
There’s a friendly tie of some sort between music and eating.
THOMAS HARDY

Eat Friendship Music
If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.
THOMAS HARDY

Better Hide Offense Truth
Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.
THOMAS HARDY

Drama Episode Happiness Pain
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

Care Deserve Honor Myself People Talent
That one true heart was left behind! What feeling do we ever find, to equal among human kind, a dog’s fidelity!
THOMAS HARDY

Cheating Dog Equality Feeling Heart Human Kind True
The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.
THOMAS HARDY

Business Novel Poet Sorry
It was still early, and the sun’s lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet.
THOMAS HARDY

Early Eyes Freedom Touch
If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.
THOMAS HARDY

Alone Himself Move Talk World
If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.
THOMAS HARDY

Couple Love Marriage Relationship
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
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.
THOMAS HARDY

Difference Heaven Man Object Religion
But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.
THOMAS HARDY

Evolution Fantasy

It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.

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It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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