Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative. In its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all exhibition of itself is painful.
Thomas HardyThe main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.
Thomas HardyIt was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts.
Thomas HardyChristmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearth-side ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! yet, I feel If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel, In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know," I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.
Thomas Hardy