Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Thomas HardyRead
I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses deep despair and a wish to escape existence altogether.
Thomas Hardy's quote encapsulates a profound sense of existential despair, where the speaker reflects on the burdens of life and the desire for non-existence. It reveals a poignant struggle with identity and meaning, emphasizing the weight of suffering that can make life seem unbearable to some individuals.
Themes
DespairExistenceMeaningSufferingLife
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the philosophical aspects of life and existence.
More from Thomas Hardy
All quotes βBecause what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'.
Thomas HardyRead
But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.
Thomas HardyRead
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 herβdoubt, 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.
Thomas HardyRead
The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they? -that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,-'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand further away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!
Thomas HardyRead
Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.
Thomas HardyRead
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you mean machines are like humans?" I shook my head. "No, not like humans. With machines the feeling is, well, more finite. It doesn't go any further. With humans it's different. The feeling is always changing. Like if you love somebody, the love is always shifting or wavering. It's always questioning or inflating or disappearing or denying or hurting. And the thing is, you can't do anything about it, you can't control it. With my Subaru, it's not so complicated.
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There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination.
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If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!
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With a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war, the US and Australia could ensure every starving, sunken-eyed child on the planet could be well fed, have clean water and sanitation and a local school to go to.
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