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

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

Live Mental Togetherness
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
We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.
THOMAS HARDY

Color Creation Eyes Ourselves
The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.
THOMAS HARDY

Age Critical Decision Hands Mindset Moments Time
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
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
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
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 wish I had never been born–there or anywhere else.
THOMAS HARDY

Born Fantasy
It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.
THOMAS HARDY

Failure Marriage Observation Path People Regular
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
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
To dwellers in a wood, almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature.
THOMAS HARDY

Feature Tree Voice Wood
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 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
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
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
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
Some folk want their luck buttered.
THOMAS HARDY

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

Constitution Herself Practice Principle Success
Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Symbol
Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.
THOMAS HARDY

Drama Episode Happiness Pain
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
If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.
THOMAS HARDY

Alone Himself Move Talk World
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
But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.
THOMAS HARDY

Dreams Small Surround

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

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Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

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Popular Authors

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