Thomas Hardy

Yet saw he something in the lives

Of those who'd ceased to live

That rounded them with majesty

Which living failed to give.

For incensed love breathes quick and dies,

When famished love a-lingering lies.

You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,

But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,

And see too well your crimes!

For winning love we win the risk of losing,

And losing love is as one's life were riven.

If but some vengeful god would call to me

From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,

Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,

That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

I look into my glass,

And viewing wasting skin,

And say, ‘Would God it came to pass

My heart had shrunk as thin!’For then, I, undistrest

By hearts grown cold to me,

Could lonely wait my endless rest

With equanimity.But Time, to make me grieve,

Part steals, lets part abide;

And shakes this fragile frame at eve

With throbbings of noontide.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.

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.

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would!

The beggarly question of parentage — what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people’s, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!