black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

And yet to every bad there is a worse.

Thomas Hardy

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
That man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.
THOMAS HARDY

Listening Man Silence Wonderful
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
A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.
THOMAS HARDY

Love Lover
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
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
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
Some folk want their luck buttered.
THOMAS HARDY

Friendship Lucky One Liner
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
My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.
THOMAS HARDY

Eyes Love Myself Relationship Yourself
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
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
Their position was perhaps the happiest of all positions in the social scale, being above the line at which neediness ends, and below the line at which the convenances begin to cramp natural feeling, and the stress of threadbare modishness makes too little of enough.
THOMAS HARDY

Enough Feeling Happiness Natural Position Social
There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.
THOMAS HARDY

Avoid Eyes Pain Path Sound Story
Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Symbol
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
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
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
Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight.
THOMAS HARDY

Delight Earth Enjoyment Fashion Happiness Light Myself
Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length.
THOMAS HARDY

Experience Intense Life Measurement
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
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
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
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
THOMAS HARDY

Argument Custom Moral Poet
Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.
THOMAS HARDY

Drama Episode Happiness Pain
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
I wish I had never been born–there or anywhere else.
THOMAS HARDY

Born Fantasy

And yet to every bad there is a worse.

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And yet to every bad there is a worse.

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