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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

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

Constitution Herself Practice Principle Success
We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.
THOMAS HARDY

Color Creation Eyes Ourselves
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
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
The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.
THOMAS HARDY

Age Development Early Friendship Job Man Old Performance Reach Value
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
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
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
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
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
Some folk want their luck buttered.
THOMAS HARDY

Friendship Lucky One Liner
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
THOMAS HARDY

Believe Deal Goodness Reality Strange
If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.
THOMAS HARDY

Beginning Better Path Worst
Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length.
THOMAS HARDY

Experience Intense Life Measurement
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
The first cause worked automatically like a somnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage.
THOMAS HARDY

Reflection Work

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.

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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.

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