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“He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all.”
― Thomas Hardy

“Don't take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose sweetheart she is, since she can't be yours?'

'That's the very thing I say to myself,' said Gabriel.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“The sky was clear -- remarkably clear -- and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.”
― Thomas Hardy

“It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her she was beautiful.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes - some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world - some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“When the love-led man had ceased from his labours Bathsheba came and looked him in the face.

'Gabriel, will you you stay on with me?' she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because there was going to be another smile soon.

'I will,' said Gabriel.

And she smiled on him again.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Oh, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without hoping or intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may do more harm than good in the world." The sergeant looked down the mead in critical abstraction. "Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman. She can marry him: he is content, and leads a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men always covet—your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you—you can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in he world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty more—the susceptible person myself possibly among them—will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race.”
― Thomas Hardy

“Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable. Gabriel lately, for the first time since his prostration by misfortune, had been independent in thought and vigorous in action to a marked extent-conditions which, powerless without an opportunity as an opportunity without them is barren, would have given him a sure lift upwards when the favourable conjunction should have occurred. But this incurable loitering beside Bathsheba Everdene stole his time ruinously. The spring tides were going by without floating him off, and the neap might soon come which could not.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan-a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, about going to church-yes, he is!'

'I am afeard nobody ever saw him there. I never did, certainly.'

'The reason of that is,' she said eagerly, 'that he goes in privately by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at the back of the gallery. He told me so.'

This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock. It was not only received with utter incredulity as regarded itself, but threw doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides. But the understood incentive on the woman's part was wanting here. Besides, Bathsheba's position as absolute mistress of a farm and house was a novel one, and the novelty had not yet begun to wear off.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“The difference between love and respect was markedly shown in her conduct. Bathsheba had spoken of her interest in Boldwood with the greatest freedom to Liddy, but she only communed with her own heart concerning Troy.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“He can blow the flute very well-that 'a can,' said a young married man, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as 'Susan Tall's husband.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“There are considerations even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made-ties you know nothing of. If you repent of marrying, so do I.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

“Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being.”
― Thomas Hardy

“Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones-- dancing, leaping, striding, and mingling in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined snakes of green, rising and falling, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. From every part of the tumbling sky came a shout. ... Gabriel was almost blinded, and he could feel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand-- a sensation new and thrilling. But love, life, everything human, seemed small and trifling beside the spectacle of an infuriated universe.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

“His want of tact had deeply offended her—not by seeing what he could not help, but by letting her know that he had seen it. For, as without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum; and she appeared to feel that Gabriel's espial had made her an indecorous woman without her own connivance. It was food for great regret with him; it was also a CONTRETEMPS which touched into life a latent heat he had experienced in that direction.”
― Tomas Hardy

“Slowly, he dropped to one knee and reached into his coat.
Panic gripped her. Once upon a time, this was all she wanted, someone who would commit to her, who would promise to never leave. But his being here was already an answer to prayer in itself. For the first time in her life, she could see the value of patience. Her relationship with Justin wasn't something she wanted to rush.
And then she exhaled on a relieved laugh when the package he withdrew from his coat turned out to be not a ring box, but something flat and rectangular wrapped in flowered paper.
"I may not be as steady and reliable as Gabriel Oak, and I most certainly know nothing about sheep, but I promise you I will never be a Sergeant Troy. Will you give me another chance?"
Slowly, she pulled the paper away to reveal the last thing she'd expected: the long-desired, impossible-to-find yellowback edition of Far from the Madding Crowd.”
― Carla Laureano, Brunch at Bittersweet Café

“For a marriage would be very nice in one sense. People would talk about me, and think I had won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, and all that, But a husband--"

"Well!"

"Why, he'd always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up, there he'd be."

"Of course he would--I, that is."

"Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman can't show off in that way by herself, I shan't marry--at least yet.”
― Thomas Hardy

“However, we are very apt to think extremes of people. I shouldn't wonder after all if it wasn't a little of both -- just between the two -- rather cruelly used and rather reserved.”
― Thomas Hardy

“Come all you fair and tender girls
That flourish in your prime
Beware, beware, keep your garden fair
Let no man steal your thyme
Let no man steal your thyme
For when your thyme, it is past and gone
He'll care no more for you
And every place your time was waste
Will all spread over with rue
Will all spread over with rue
The goddess son was standing by
Three flowers he gave to me
The pink, the blue and the violet true
And the red, red rosy tree
And the red, red rosy tree
But I refused the red rose bush
And gave the willow tree
That all the world may plainly see
How my love slighted me
How my love slighted me”
― traditional folk ballad