Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women do when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.

— Thomas Hardy

Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.

— Thomas Hardy

Being a harp which the least wind of emotion from another’s heart could make to vibrate as readily as a radical stir in her own.

— Thomas Hardy

Better to choose a limit capriciously than to have none.

— Thomas Hardy

But I wish to be enlightened.'' Let me caution you against it.'' Is enlightenment on the subject, then, so terrible?'' Yes, indeed.' She laughingly declared that nothing could have so piqued her curiosity as his statement.

— Thomas Hardy

But there were certain early days in Caster bridge- days of firmament exhaustion which followed angry south-westerly tempests-when, if the sun shone, the air was like velvet.

— Thomas Hardy

But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are.

— Thomas Hardy

But you shouldn't have let her. That's the only way with these fanciful women that Shaw high--innocent or guilty. She'd have come round in time. We all do! Custom does it! It's all the same in the end! However, I think she's fond of her man still--whatever the med be of her. You were too quick about her. I shouldn't have let her go! I should have kept her chained on-- her spirit for kicking would have been broke soon enough! There's nothing like bondage and a stone-deaf taskmaster for taming us women. Besides, you've got the laws on your side. Moses knew.

— Thomas Hardy

But you will never realize that an incident which filled but a degree in the circle of your thoughts covered the whole circumference of mine. No person can see exactly what and where another's horizon is.

— Thomas Hardy

Deeds of endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct.

— Thomas Hardy