Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. I Look into My Glass (l. 9-12). . . The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy. James Gibson, ed. (1978) Macmillan.)

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

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. In Time of "The Breaking of Nations," (l. 1-4). . . The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy. James Gibson, ed. (1978) Macmillan.)

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

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. Ladywell, in The Hand of Ethelberta, ch. 20 (1875).)

Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. Let Me Enjoy the Earth, Time's Laughing Stocks (1909).)

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

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. Mrs. Napper, in The Hand of Ethelberta, ch. 9 (1876). Speaking of Ethelberta.)

Some folk want their luck buttered.

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. Mrs. Cuxcom, in The Mayor of Casterbridge, ch. 13 (1886).)

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. In Time of "The Breaking of Nations," (l. 9-12). . . The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy. James Gibson, ed. (1978) Macmillan.)

And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. Jude the Obscure, part first, ch. 9 (1895).)

For a novel addressed by a man to men and women of full age; which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster, that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity; to tell, without a mincing of words, of a deadly war waged between flesh and spirit; and to point the tragedy of unfulfilled aims, I am not aware that there is anything in the handling to which exception can be taken.

(Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), British novelist, poet. Jude the Obscure, preface to the first edition (1895).)