Thomas Hardy

Yes quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown.

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

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society and we can't get out of it if we would.

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

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.

My argument is that War makes rattling good history but Peace is poor reading.

Fear is the mother of foresight.

I am the family face flesh perishes, I live on.

I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.

The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.