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

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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
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
THOMAS HARDY

Afraid Heart Trouble
If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.
THOMAS HARDY

Couple Love Marriage Relationship
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
I wish I had never been born–there or anywhere else.
THOMAS HARDY

Born Fantasy
O, you have torn my life all to pieces… made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again!
THOMAS HARDY

Life Myself Pieces Prayer
A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.
THOMAS HARDY

Love Lover
Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave as little as my bed. Teach me to die.
THOMAS HARDY

Bed Death Grave Live Teaching
It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession.
THOMAS HARDY

Acceptance Appearance Husband Man Marriage Ordinary Possession Woman
Some folk want their luck buttered.
THOMAS HARDY

Friendship Lucky One Liner
We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.
THOMAS HARDY

Color Creation Eyes Ourselves
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
Well, these sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge in.
THOMAS HARDY

Cruelty Different Fate Hope Indulgence Love Obstacle Sad
Our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.
THOMAS HARDY

Judgement Ourselves Strong
We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more.
THOMAS HARDY

Live Mental Togetherness
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
Many have learned that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements, but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.
THOMAS HARDY

Drama Experience Happiness Impression Leadership Learning Life Live Placement Subject
I may do some good before I am dead–be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.
THOMAS HARDY

Death Goodness Illustration Moral Story Success
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
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
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
To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.
THOMAS HARDY

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

Constitution Herself Practice Principle Success
It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.
THOMAS HARDY

Humanity Imperfection Sweet Touch
Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Symbol

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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