Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

Thomas Hardy Novelist

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Jun 2, 1840
  • Died: Jan 11, 1928

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. However, beginning in the 1950s Hardy has been recognised as a major poet; he had a significant influence on the Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s, including Philip Larkin.

Most of his fictional works – initially published as serials in magazines – were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity. courage & patience

I am the family face flesh perishes, I live on. family

Yes quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown. war

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

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him. religion

I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. death

My argument is that War makes rattling good history but Peace is poor reading. history, peace & war

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society and we can't get out of it if we would. nature & society

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

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art. art, nature & poetry

Fear is the mother of foresight. fear

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone. alone & poetry

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes. hope

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. change & time