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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

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
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
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
Women are attracted to silent men. They believe they are listening.
THOMAS HARDY

Attraction Listening Man Silence Woman
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
To be loved to madness–such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.
THOMAS HARDY

Desire Greatness Love Madness Passionate
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
So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope.
THOMAS HARDY

Distance Dreams Hope Privacy Soul Sun
A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
THOMAS HARDY

Herself Strength Strong Weakness Woman Worst
Women accept their destiny more readily than men.
THOMAS HARDY

Acceptance Destiny Man Woman
And yet to every bad there is a worse.
THOMAS HARDY

Bad One Liner Worst
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
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
We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more.
THOMAS HARDY

Live Mental Togetherness
If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.
THOMAS HARDY

Beginning Better Path Worst
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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