Thomas Hardy

"Power is the ability to make a difference."

"Money is a means, not an end."

"Cherish your health before it's gone."

"Life is an adventure, embrace it."

"Your imagination is limitless."

"Learning from history prevents future mistakes."

"Philosophy questions everything."

"Literature preserves the human spirit."

"War brings only suffering."

"The business of the poet and novelist is to show the sorrows underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things."

"If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst."

"A man's treatment of his inferior is the true test of his character."

"The chronic expectation of what never comes is as bad as any actual misfortune."

"We are all ghosts, and all equally placed in this ghostly world."

"Love is a great beautifier."

"Time has only too much in store."

"Women are not to be won by force or argument."

"The persistent man becomes irresistible."

"A man must learn to forgive himself."

"The role of the imagination is not merely to invent facts but to perceive truth."

"Knowledge is not the highest thing—goodness and integrity are."

"All things merge into one another—good into evil, generosity into justice."

"The most irritating of all conceivable companions is a man who talks of himself."

"A woman rarely thinks of her husband when she is thinking of his house."

"Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt."

"Nature is indifferent to our fates."

"The unreasoning mask called a habit."

"Art is the secret confessional of humanity."

"A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all."

"The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it."