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It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.

Thomas Hardy

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

Listening Man Silence Wonderful
Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.
THOMAS HARDY

Best Devotion Failure Greatness Kind Man Remember Selfish
Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.
THOMAS HARDY

Drama Episode Happiness Pain
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
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
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
Some folk want their luck buttered.
THOMAS HARDY

Friendship Lucky One Liner
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
And yet to every bad there is a worse.
THOMAS HARDY

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

Live Mental Togetherness
It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Bird Eyes Learning Sing Sweet Terrible
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
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
THOMAS HARDY

Believe Deal Goodness Reality Strange
When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often then not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover.
THOMAS HARDY

Beginning Lover Secret Woman
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
Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.
THOMAS HARDY

Beautiful Symbol
Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.
THOMAS HARDY

Love One Liner Possible Strength Weakness
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
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
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
My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.
THOMAS HARDY

Eyes Love Myself Relationship Yourself
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
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
Women are attracted to silent men. They believe they are listening.
THOMAS HARDY

Attraction Listening Man Silence Woman

It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.

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It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.

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Popular Authors

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