Tess of the d'Urbervilles Quotes

“The perfect woman, you see, was a working woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who used her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:woman

“Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration.”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:experience

“You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming...”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:pleasure

“Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:honesty

“The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now.”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:honestycruelty

“This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:livingdifficulty

“She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct.”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:morality

“Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:sin

“I am only a peasant by position, not by nature!”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:pride

“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.”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

topic:willcharacter