# Quote — Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

> The rural world was not ripe for him. A man should be only partially before his time—to be completely to the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son been intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but nobody would have heard of an Alexander.

- 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/the-rural-world

## More from this book

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native/human-beings-in-their.md)

> 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)