Thomas Hardy, 1840 - 1928
Bain News Service photo (Ca. 1910-1915)
Born: 2 June 1840, Stinsford, Dorchester, Dorset, England, UK
Died: 11 January 1928, Dorchester, Dorset, England, UK
Hardy assisted his stonemason father as a youth so it was natural that at sixteen he apprenticed to a local architect, he continued to study and work that trade after moving to London in 1862. His first novel was never published, the next two were published anonymously, and in 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes was published under his own name. It was the first "cliffhanger" in literary history: At the end of one serialized installment, a character was left actually hanging from a cliff. The next year he created the fictional area "Wessex" in Far from the Madding Crowd and had enough success to give up architecture for writing. Well known today for that and Tess of the d'Urbervilles he published a total of fourteen novels and three volumes of short stories, but his later work so offended prudish Victorians that he abandoned the novel in 1895. He had always considered himself a poet who wrote novels for the money so the opportunity to devote himself to poetry was probably not unwelcome. Hardy fell ill with pleurisy and died within the month. A conflict between his family and his executor led to two simultaneous funerals; his family buried his heart with his first wife at Stinsford, his executor interred his ashes in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Biography from Wikipedia and Authors' Calendar
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Thomas Hardy quotes:
Quotes found : 71 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms. permalink
Thomas Hardy - The Hand of Ethelberta (1876) - A man's body is as the shell, or the tablet, of his soul, as he is reserved or ingenuous, overflowing or self-contained. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) - A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.
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Thomas Hardy - A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. permalink
Thomas Hardy - 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. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) - 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. permalink
Thomas Hardy - The Return of the Native (1878) - A woman would rather visit her own grave than the place where she has been young and beautiful after she is aged and ugly. permalink
Thomas Hardy - And yet to every bad there is a worse. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Aspect are within us, and who seems most kingly is king. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) - But no one came. Because no one ever does. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure (1895) - But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would. permalink
Thomas Hardy - Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel? permalink
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) - Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons! permalink
Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure (1895)
Quotes found : 71 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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