Far From the Madding Crowd Quotes

“She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“A headstrong maid, that she is-and won't listen to no advice at all. Pride and vanity have ruined many a cobbler's dog.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Wisdom lies in moderating mere impressions”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“a day which had a summer face and a winter constitution”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, Boldwood had felt the symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in the direction of an ideal passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus—the contemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the infinitely great.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Bathsheba," he said tenderly and in surprise, and coming closer: "if I only knew one thing- you would allow me to love you and win you. and marry you after all-- if I only knew that.!"

"But you never will know", she murmured.

"Why?"

"Because you never ask."

"Oh-Oh!" said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. "My own dear-”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into being
on the lower verge--the eclipse had begun. This marked a preconcerted
moment--for the remote celestial phenomenon had been pressed into
sublunary service as a lover's signal. Yeobright's mind flew back to
earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened. Minute after
minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the shadow on the moon
perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left hand, a cloaked
figure with an upturned face appeared at the base of the Barrow, and
Clym descended. In a moment the figure was in his arms, and his lips
upon hers.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Hence Bathsheba lived in a perception that her purposes were broken off. She was not a woman who could hope on without good materials for the process, differing thus from the less far-sighted and energetic, though more petted ones of the sex, with whom hope goes on as a sort of clockwork which the merest food and shelter are sufficient to wind up; and perceiving clearly that her mistake had been a fatal one, she accepted her position, and waited coldly for the end.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“But mind this, I don't wish 'ee to feel you owe me anything. Not I. What I do, I do. Sometimes I say I should be as glad as a bird to leave the place — for don't suppose I'm content to be a nobody. I was made for better things.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Bathsheba you are the first woman of any shade or nature that I have ever looked at to love, and it is the having been so near claiming you for my own that makes this denial so hard to bear. How nearly you promised me! But I don't speak now to move your heart, and make you grieve because of my pain; it is no use, that. I must bear it; my pain would get no less by paining you.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Those who have the power of reproaching in silence may find it a means more effective than words. There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound. Boldwood's look was unanswerable.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“in this attribute moral or æsthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“That's my fist." Here he placed his fist, rather smaller in size than a common loaf, in the mathematical centre of the maltster's little table, and with it gave a bump or two thereon, as if to ensure that their eyes all thoroughly took in the idea of fistiness before he went further.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“This instrument being several years older than Oak's grandfather, had the peculiarity of going either too fast or not at all. The smaller of its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil consequences from the other two defects by constant comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and by pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours' windows, till he could discern the hour marked by the green-faced timekeepers within.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“...a true narrative like time and tide must run its course and would respect no man.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“The clash of discord between mood and matter here was forced painfully home to the heart; and, as in laughter there are more dreadful phases than in tears, so was there in the steadiness of this agonized man an expression deeper than a cry.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“The maltster, after having lain down in his clothes for a few hours, was now sitting beside a three-legged table, breakfasting off bread and bacon. This was eaten on the plateless system, which is performed by placing a slice of bread upon the table, the meat flat upon the bread, a mustard plaster upon the meat, and a pinch of salt upon the whole, then cutting them vertically downwards with a large pocket-knife till wood is reached, when the severed lump is impaled on the knife, elevated, and sent the proper way of food.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“I have nobody in the world to fight my battles for me; but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and say things against me, I will not be put down!”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy's method, till he too passed on.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“Peace and war kiss each other at their hours of preparation—sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning-hooks, ranking with swords, bayonets, and lances, in their common necessity for point and edge.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss by the loser therefrom.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in this way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he could speak of love and think of dinner; call on the husband to look at the wife; be eager to pay and intend to owe.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“He admired her so much that he used to light the candle three times a night to look at her.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“The wondrous power of flattery in passados at woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“the impetuosity of passion unrequited is bearable, even if it stings and anathematizes—there is a triumph in the humiliation, and a tenderness in the strife. This was what she had been expecting, and what she had not got. To be lectured because the lecturer saw her in the cold morning light of open-shuttered disillusion was exasperating.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“A woman may be treated with a bitterness which is sweet to her, and with a rudeness which is not offensive.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigor, she always allowed her interlocutors to finish their statements before rejoining with hers.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd