She was but a transient impression, half forgotten.

...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.

And yet to every bad there is a worse.

If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?

That it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summertime!

If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.

To dance with a man is to concentrate a twelvemonth's regulation fire upon him in the fragment of an hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone who tread this royal road.