Frases de Thomas Hardy

“Un amante sin indiscreciones no es amante en modo alguno.”

“Es difícil para una mujer definir sus sentimientos en un lenguaje creado principalmente por el hombre para expresar los suyos.”

“La felicidad no depende de lo que uno no tiene, sino del buen uso que hace de lo que tiene.”

“Acepto las condiciones, Ángel, puesto que tú sabes mejor que yo el castigo que merezco. Ahora que no me lo impongas tan duro que no lo pueda resistir.”

“Ahora, mi amor- murmuró-, eres mío y sólo mío porque ella al fin se ha olvidado de ti, a pesar de que murieras por ella. Pero cada vez que yo me levante pensaré en ti y cada vez que me vaya a dormir volveré a pensar en ti.”

“rara vez el hombre digno de ser amado coincide con la hora de amar. Raramente dice la naturaleza «¡Mira!» al pobre ser humano en el instante en que hacerlo así puede conducirle a la felicidad; y pocas veces responde «Aquí» al grito de «¿Dónde?», hasta que ese juego del escondite degenera en un pasatiempo pesado y tedioso.”

“Había alcanzado ese momento de la vida en que «joven» deja de ser el calificativo de «hombre» cuando se habla de uno. Se encontraba en la plenitud de su desarrollo masculino, pues su intelecto y sus emociones se hallaban claramente diferenciadas: había pasado la edad en la que la influencia de la juventud mezcla indiscriminadamente ambas cosas, produciendo un carácter impulsivo, pero aún no había alcanzado esa otra en la que vuelven a conciliarse para producir un carácter aprensivo, por la influencia de la esposa y la familia. En resumidas cuentas, tenía veintiocho años y estaba soltero.”

“Se recostó contra las colmenas, y levantando al cielo la cara, hizo algunas observaciones a propósito de las estrellas, cuyas frías pulsaciones palpitaban en las negras oquedades de allá arriba, llenas de serena indiferencia respecto a aquellas dos briznas de humanidad.”

“Trabaja duro y sé pobre, no hagas nada y obtén más.”

“tal vez me interesara saber por qué… por qué sale el sol lo mismo para el bueno que para el malo”

“Coloreamos y moldeamos de acuerdo a las necesidades dentro de nosotros, sea lo que sea que traigan nuestros ojos”

“Bathsheba había alcanzado ese punto en el que la gente deja de preocuparse por lo que los demás puedan pensar.”

“Conduces bien, pero no besas bien en absoluto.”

“Ah, "Se dijo a sí misma, querer un objeto por el que vivir- ¡eso es todo lo que me pasa!”

“Y al fin el octavo día llegó. La vaca había dejado de dar leche para el resto del año, y Bathsheba Everdene no volvería a subir la colina. Gabriel había alcanzado un punto en su existencia que jamás habría podido imaginar poco antes. Disfrutaba diciendo « Bathsheba» en privado, en lugar de silbar; y empezó a gustarle más el pelo negro, pese a que desde niño se había jurado fiel al castaño, distanciándose de los demás hasta ocupar a sus ojos un espacio insignificante. El amor es una fuerza posible que nace de una debilidad real.”

“Tras realizar algunas averiguaciones supo que el nombre de la muchacha era Bathsheba Everdene”

“Bueno, pero no religioso, bueno.”

“No se turbe vuestro corazón, ni tenga miedo.”

“Hecho porque somos demasiado menny.”

“Un culto local, llamado cristianismo.”

“Quiero cuestionar mi creencia, para que lo que quede después de haberlo cuestionado sea aún más fuerte.”

“¿Es una mujer una unidad pensante en absoluto, o una fracción que siempre quiere su número entero?”

“En lo alto, el tramo hueco de nube blanquecina que cerraba el cielo era como una tienda de campaña que tenía todo el páramo para su piso.”

“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”

“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”

“A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.”

“Beauty lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolized.”

“Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…”

“Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”

“If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.”

“My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.”

“Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.”

“All romances end at marriage.”

“She was at that modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called having a fancy for. It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will.”

“Her strong sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had deserved much more. And in being forced to class herself among the fortunate she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”

“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.”

“I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon…. O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing —
Not even I — would undo me so!”

“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.”

“They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.”

“Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.”

“A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms.”

“War's annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.”

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

“People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.”

“Love is a possible strength, in an actual weakness. Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants.”

“Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?”

“Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance of discovering in that way; and you did not help me!”

“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be — and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.”

“… our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes”

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”

“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.”