Hardy Quotes

It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man
that question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times
whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays
I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!' But having ended no better than I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy! ~ Thomas Hardy

Life with a man is more businesslike after it, and money matters work better. And then, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, you can get the law to protect you, which you can't otherwise, unless he half-runs you through with a knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker. And if he bolts away from you
I say it friendly, as woman to woman, for there's never any knowing what a man med do
you'll have the sticks o' furniture, and won't be looked upon as a thief. ~ Thomas Hardy

As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against depression without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested issolation, but it revealed something more. As Usual with bright natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within a ephemeral human carcase shone out of him like a ray. ~ Thomas Hardy

She saw that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman is singled out in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters, unconsciously received by unfortunate men when the last intention of their lives is to be occupied with the feminine. ~ Thomas Hardy

The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices ~ Darren Hardy

For many Westerners, "it's natural" seems to mean "it's good." This view is wrong and comes from shopping in supermarkets and living in landscaped environments. Plants evolved toxins to deter animals, fungi, and bacteria from eating them. The list of "natural" foods that need processing to detoxify them goes on and on. Early potatoes were toxic, and the Andean peoples ate clay to neutralize the toxin. Even beans can be toxic without processing. In California, many hunter-gatherer populations relied on acorns, which, similar to manioc, require a labor intensive, multiday leaching process. Many small-scale societies have similarly exploited hardy, tropical plants called cycads for food. But cycads contain a nerve toxin. If not properly processed, they can cause neurological symptoms, paralysis, and death. Numerous societies, including hunter-gatherers, have culturally evolved an immense range of detoxification techniques for cycads. By contrast with our species, other animals have far superior abilities to detoxify plants. Humans, however, lost these genetic adaptations and evolved a dependence on cultural know-how, just to eat. ~ Joseph Henrich

Don't let ... anybody in the Cowboys organization fool you into thinking they support Greg Hardy. They don't. They support sacks. ~ Katie Nolan

[She] soon perceived that as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women were also wandering in their gait ... Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they. ~ Thomas Hardy

The thought of talking about it made Pueblo's gut ache, but then he thought of everything that Amy had been through – not that she'd told him her version yet. She had balls of steel, he thought with a smile. And what did he have? Three pairs of loin cloths going crisp on the radiator. ~ Dianna Hardy

Channel Firing
BY THOMAS HARDY
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

"All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

"That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening....

"Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need)."

So down we lay again. "I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,"
Said one, "than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!"

And many a skeleton shook his head.
"Instead of preaching forty year,"
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
"I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer."

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, ~ Thomas Hardy

I wanted more of those sweltering kisses. I felt terrible about that. But the warm sunny fragrance of him ... he smelled better than any human being I'd ever met. "Okay" I said unsteadily, "forget what I said about not exchanging names. Who are you?"
"For you, honey ... I'm trouble." -Haven & Hardy ~ Lisa Kleypas

I'm not a big guy anyway. I'm only, what, 150 pounds? I was 190 for 'Batman,' 179 for 'Warrior.' Films make you look big. ~ Tom Hardy

They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. ~ Thomas Hardy

But time is short, and science is infinite... ~ Thomas Hardy

We are acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth. ~ Thomas Hardy

He had just reached the time of life at which 'young' is ceasing to be the prefix of 'man' in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine life, for his intellect and emotions were clearly separate; he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the state wherin they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family.In short he was twenty-eight and a bachelor. ~ Thomas Hardy

Christianity was born for endurance; it is not an exotic, but a hardy plant, braced by the keen wind; not languid, nor childish nor cowardly. It walks with strong step and erect frame; it is kindly, but firm; it is gentle, but honest; it is calm, but not facile; decided, but not churlish. It does not fear to speak the stern word of condemnation against error, nor to raise its voice against surrounding evils, knowing that it is not of this world. ~ Horatius Bonar

Fear is the mother of foresight. ~ Thomas Hardy

The only superiority in women that is tolerable to the rival sex is, as a rule, that of the unconscious kind; but a superiority which recognizes itself may sometimes please by suggesting possibilities of capture to the subordinated man. This ~ Thomas Hardy

The geometer offers to the physicist a whole set of maps from which to choose. One map, perhaps, will fit the facts better than others, and then the geometry which provides that particular map will be the geometry most important for applied mathematics. ~ G.H. Hardy

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

Mona knocked at the wrong time.
"Uh ... yeah ... wait a minute, Mona
"
Mona shouted through the door. "Room service, gentlemen. Just pull the covers up."
Michael grinned at Jon. "My roommate. Brace yourself."
Seconds later, Mona burst through the doorway with a tray of coffee and croissants.
"Hi! I'm Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys! ~ Armistead Maupin

It didn't take long to figure out I'll never go back to teaching public high school. Why would I, when I can make virtually the same money waiting tables, have no stress, and work half the hours? When I can give away or trade my shifts if I need time to write or study. When I'll never have to wake up early, take my work home, or talk to anyone's parents
unless it's in regards to the nightly specials, the Spanish grenache that pairs beautifully with our house-made mole sauce. ~ Nicole Hardy

To see persons looking with children's eyes at any ordinary scenery, is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations from an old experience ... ~ Thomas Hardy

The inspection of these chasms brought him a second pulsation of that old horror which he had used to describe to Viviette as produced in him by bottomlessness in the north heaven. The ghostly finger of limitless vacancy touched him now on the other side. ~ Thomas Hardy

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

("The Three Strangers") ~ Thomas Hardy

When shall the saner softer polities Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land, And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas? ~ Thomas Hardy

Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds. I ~ G.H. Hardy

Eyeing her as a critic eyes a doubtful painting. ~ Thomas Hardy

The cow and horse tracks in the road were full of water, the rain having been enough to charge them, but not enough to wash them away. Across these minute pools the reflected stars flitted in a quick transit as she passed; she would not have known they were shining overhead if she had not seen them there - the vastest things of the universe imaged in objects so mean. ~ Thomas Hardy

He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan-a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society. ~ Thomas Hardy

You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always ~ Thomas Hardy

You can keep a bunch of crabs in a shallow container, and none of them will escape. Because as soon as one of 'em tries to climb out, the others pull him back in. -Hardy ~ Lisa Kleypas

I don't know what we're doing here – you and me … I don't know what we are or what we can be, but this doesn't have to be about that. This can just be about … a chance. Taking a chance. ~ Dianna Hardy

If I really seem vain, it is that I am only vain in my ways - not in my heart. The worst women are those vain in their hearts, and not in their ways. ~ Thomas Hardy

If all the people around you are happy with you, you are not doing great work. ~ Darren Hardy

It is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then. ~ Thomas Hardy

An innocent youth wrote recently that he is convinced I am the greatest writer in the world (from New Zealand). A touching letter – so simple & unaffected. Another young man wrote, only yesterday, that I am to him what Hardy must have been to me. Such tributes are worth having, aren't they, even if I don't deserve them. ~ Siegfried Sassoon

No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world. ~ G.H. Hardy

It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds. ~ G.H. Hardy

That one true heart was left behind! What feeling do we ever find, to equal among human kind , a dog's fidelity! ~ Thomas Hardy

Moment by moment, with a twitch, a shudder, a look, it's Mr. Hardy who movingly draws you in, turning a stranger's face into a life. ~ Manohla Dargis

Life doesn't have to be pain-free to be full. ~ Niki Hardy

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

What at night had been perfect and ideal was by day the more or less defective real. ~ Thomas Hardy

And they said females were the moody ones. Yeah – right. No one did moods like Alpha male werewolves. ~ Dianna Hardy

Angel, who was filling the vats with his handful, suddenly ceased, and laid his hands flat upon hers. Her sleeves were rolled far above the elbow, and bending lower he kissed the inside vein of her soft arm. ~ Thomas Hardy

When you've made up your mind to marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand - she's as good as any other; they be all alike in groundwork: 'tis only in the flourishes there's a difference. ~ Thomas Hardy

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them. ~ Thomas Hardy

he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, ~ Thomas Hardy

I think ageing suits me because I was born old, like Spencer Tracy or Dolly the Sheep. ~ Jeremy Hardy

�"You swore this deal would be a safe little exchange. I didn�'t sign up for this� - Chinese mafia and Hashishins. I�'m an MD, not special ops.�"
Kira Hardy in Dawn of a Dark Knight ~ Zoe Forward

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs. ~ Thomas Hardy

When yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hairlike lines. ~ Thomas Hardy

Stan said he used to keep Hardy late, make him miss his golf game, and really get him mad. ~ Dick Van Dyke

I don't
know about ghosts, but I do know that our souls can be made to go outside our bodies when we are alive ... A very easy way to feel 'em go is to lie on the grass at night, and look straight up at some big bright star; and by fixing your mind upon it you will soon find that you are hundreds and hundreds o' miles away from your body, which you don't seem to want at all. ~ Thomas Hardy

Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer. ~ Richard Holt Hutton

She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him. ~ Thomas Hardy

Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great craving for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and even tenderness, was not sorry to join her ... ~ Thomas Hardy

The season developed and matured. Another year's instalment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings. ~ Thomas Hardy

What's simple to do is also simple not to do." The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect. So, beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible. The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not. Remember that; it will come in handy many times throughout life when faced with a difficult, tedious, or tough choice. ~ Darren Hardy

But dreams change. Fate has a way showing you paths you want more. ~ Abbi Glines

And the thorny crown of this sad conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature, cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored. ~ Thomas Hardy

The Folly had last been refurbished in the 1930s when the British establishment firmly believed that central heating was the work, if not of the devil per se, then definitely evil foreigners bent on weakening the hardy British spirit. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

Such women as you a hundred men always convet - your eyes will only bewitch scores on scores into the unvailing fancy for you - you can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will will endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in the world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty more - the suspectible person myself possibly among them - will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all of these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race (Ch. 26) ~ Thomas Hardy

... it might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece had been the source of the religion of modern civilization, and not Palestine ~ Thomas Hardy

People say I must be cold–natured - sexless - on account of it. But I won't have it! Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most self–contained in their daily lives. ~ Thomas Hardy

So many people make a name nowadays, that it is more distinguished to remain in obscurity. ~ Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearth-side ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! yet, I feel If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel, In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know," I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. ~ Thomas Hardy

We discern a grand force in the lover which he lacks whilst a free man, but there is a breadth of vision in the free man which in the lover we vainly seek. ~ Thomas Hardy

Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants. ~ Thomas Hardy

It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility. ~ G.H. Hardy

She is a bold and passionate woman, fighting to earn respect as a farm owner and over the course of the novel she has to endure much suffering, which enhances her better qualities while diminishing some elements of her less admirable traits. ~ Thomas Hardy

The best is not to remember that your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings 'll be like thousands's and thousands'. ~ Thomas Hardy

This was a practical application of the principle that a half-feigned and fictitious faith is better than no faith at all. ~ Thomas Hardy

The ultimate success of a product or service is 10 percent product quality and 90 percent sales. Nine ~ Darren Hardy

Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted fellow; he had good strength to work at times; but the times could not be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement; and, having been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day-labourer, he was not particularly persistent when they did so coincide. ~ Thomas Hardy

Mathematics may, like poetry or music, "promote and sustain a lofty habit of mind." ~ G.H. Hardy

Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture. ~ Thomas Hardy

You'd be amazed at the grand tales the human brain will throw up to make sense of something nonsensical. ~ Dianna Hardy

Like paths and alleys overgrown with hardy, rank-growing weeds, the words we use are overgrown with our individual, private, provincial associations, which tend to choke the meaning. ~ Stefan Themerson

MATT HARDY WILL NOT DIE ~ Matt Hardy

Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her? If not, of course - '
'I don't think she would.'
'Are you sure?'
'I am sure she wouldn't.'
He was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's tender letter.
'I am sure she would!' he retorted passionaltely. 'I know her better than you do.'
'That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known her. ~ Thomas Hardy

Hardy would never be the easiest man to have a relationship with. He was complex and strong-willed and rough-edged. But I loved those qualities about him. I was more than willing to take him exactly as he was. And it didn't hurt that he seemed equally game to take me on my own terms. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike amoung them. Some approached pure blanching, some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which has possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadavourous tint, and to a georgian style. ~ Thomas Hardy

He never knew a single second could be expanded into something timeless and so archaic. It shook him to his core – there were no words for it. ~ Dianna Hardy

Eustacia, I don't know where to look: my thoughts go through me like swords. ~ Thomas Hardy

Everything in your life exists because you first made a choice about something. Choices are at the root of every one of your results. Each choice starts a behavior that over time becomes a habit. Choose poorly, and you just might find yourself back at the drawing board, forced to make new, often harder choices. Don't choose at all, and you've made the choice to be the passive receiver of whatever comes your way. ~ Darren Hardy

If a plot is a novel's skeleton, and characters are the muscle, then theme is its soul. ~ Janice Hardy

In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy's method, till he too passed on. ~ Thomas Hardy

The Ed Hardy man is confident with a strong sense of personal style. He is not afraid to be seen and take risks. He enjoys comfort and flexible style, yet he wants to stand apart from the crowd. ~ Christian Audigier

This journey then, is nothing more, yet nothing less than a period of acclimating to a new way of seeing, a time of transition and revelation as it gradually comes upon "that" which remains when there is no self. this is not a journey for those who expect love and bliss, rather, it is for the hardy who have been tried by fire and have come to rest in a tough, immovable trust in "that" which lies beyond the known, beyond the self, beyond union and even beyond love and trust itself ~ Bernadette Roberts

A politician who really serves his country well, and deserves his country's gratitude, must usually possess some of the hardy virtues which we admire in the soldier who serves his country well in the field. Far ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Can anything compare to the sight of the first yellow violets blooming along a woodland path? These most fragile of plants are yet hardy enough to bloom when nights are still frosty and snow still lingers in the ravines. ~ Howard Evans

I'm weird. I still believe that when you do good deeds, you get something back in return. That's why I really enjoy helping other guys succeed. ~ Matt Hardy

Then if children make so much trouble, why do people have 'em? ~ Thomas Hardy

And all this while the subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things around her had taken the shape they wore in preference to every other possible shape. ~ Thomas Hardy

Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almost too novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones - dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. Simultaneously came from every part of the tumbling sky what may be called a shout; since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the nature of a shout than of anything else earthly. ~ Thomas Hardy

It being the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one. ~ Thomas Hardy

She showed that oblique-mannered softness which is perhaps more frequent in women of darker complexion and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs. Charmond's was; women who lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speak to them, who inveigle rather than prompt, and take advantage of currents rather than steer. ~ Thomas Hardy