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Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

— Thomas Hardy The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)

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More quotes by Thomas Hardy

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons!

Jude the Obscure (1895)

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

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen.

The Return of the Native (1878)

To discover evil in a new friend is to most people only an additional experience.

Desperate Remedies (1871)

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

Martin Buber Between Man and Man (1965)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Hardy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.