Thomas Hardy

To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.

It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature—neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.

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

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.

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.

You calculated how to be uncalculating, and are natural by art!

Work hard and be poor, do nothing and get more.

There's reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!

"Ah," she said to herself, "want of an object to live for—that's all is the matter with me!"

Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.

The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen.

When that half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail.