# Quote — Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

> Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower moral quality than their own; and, even while they sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses for the oppression which prompts their tears.

- Author: [Thomas Hardy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy.md)
- Book: [The Return of the Native](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy#The_Return_of_the_Native_(1878)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native/human-beings-in-their

## More from this book

> How bewitched I was! How could there be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native/how-bewitched-i-was.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native/a-well-proportioned.md)

> The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native/the-great-inviolate.md)