Thomas Hardy citáty

„Byla to noc, kdy i nejveselejšího člověka může navštívit lítost, aniž působí příliš nepřiměřeně; kdy se citlivým osobám láska mění v úzkost, naděje klesá v pochybnost a víra v naději.“

„Ženy nikdy neunaví naříkat mužovou nestálostí v lásce, avšak jeho stálost, zdá se, pouze chladně přehlížejí.“

„Jak je možné, že žena umí vidět z dáli to, co muž nevidí ani z blízka?“

„Jsem si jist, že pro spisovatele je důležitější důkladně znát malý kousek země než povrchně třeba celý svět.“

„Všechny romantické příběhy v manželství končí.“

„Krása nespočívá ve věci, ale v tom, co věc symbolizuje.“

„Slabost je dvakrát tak slabá, je-li nová.“

„Láska, třebaže znamená zvýšené city, znamená i sníženou rozumovou schopnost.“

„Shledávám, že nad smrt je trpčí žena, jejíž srdce je plno osidel a sítí.“

„Kdyby byl úspěšným člověkem, zažil by úlek, avšak neštěstí je krásným opiátem pro osobní strach.“

„I když je dobrá dohoda příliš zvláštní na to, aby se jí dalo věřit, nic není příliš zvláštní na to, aby se to stalo.“

„Tam, kde jsme, by bylo pro mě rájem, kdyby si ho ty ním pro mě udělala.“

„Básníci samozřejmě mají vlastní morálku a chování a zvyk není pro ně žádný argument.“

„Velikost života nespočívá ve vnějších okázalostech, nýbrž ve vnitřních prožitcích.“

„Lidské představy o pravděpodobnosti jsou do značné míry pouhým přesvědčením, že to, co se jednou přihodilo, přihodí se zas.“

„Lepší malý oheň, který nás zahřeje než velký, který nás spálí.“

„Lepší malý oheň, který nás zahřeje, než velký, který nás spálí.“

“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”

“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”

“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.”

“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”

“Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…”

“Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”

“If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.”

“My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.”

“Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.”

“All romances end at marriage.”

“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.”

“Her strong sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had deserved much more. And in being forced to class herself among the fortunate she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”

“To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.”

“I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon…. O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing —
Not even I — would undo me so!”

“A well proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.”

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

“Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.”

“A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms.”

“War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.”

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

“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.”

“Love is a possible strength, in an actual weakness. 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.”

“Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?”

“Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance of discovering in that way; and you did not help me!”

“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be — and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.”

“… our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes”

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”

“Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband.”