Jude the Obscure Quotes

People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.

But no one came. Because no one ever does.

You have never loved me as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite-- not a woman!

Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong.

Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail...

But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.

Somebody might have come along that way who would have asked him his trouble, and might have cheered him by saying that his notions were further advanced than those of his grammarian. But nobody did come, because nobody does; and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out of the world.

I may do some good before I am dead--be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.

You concede nothing to me and I have to concede everything to you.

You are Joseph the dreamer of dreams, dear Jude.And a tragic Don Quixote. And sometimes you are St. Stephen, who, while theywere stoning him, could see Heaven opened. Oh, my poor friend and comrade,you'll suffer yet!

We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more.

Teach me to live, that I may dreadThe grave as little as my bed.Teach me to die…

Always wanting another man than your own.

Women are so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplaced kindness.

You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old chap, and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, though you tortured yourself to death by doing it.

He waited day after day, saying that it was perfectly absurd to expect, yet expecting.

What at night had been perfect and ideal was by day the more or less defective real.

I hate to be what is called a clever girl--there are too many of that sort now!

My wicked heart will ramble on in spite of myself. (Arabella)

You don't talk quite like a girl who has had no advantages.

As Antigone said, I am neither a dweller among men nor ghosts.

But a new thing, a great hitch, had happened yesterday in the gliding and noiseless current of his life, and he felt as a snake must feel who has sloughed off its winter skin, and cannot understand the brightness and sensitiveness of its new one.

Only a wall divided him from those happy young contemporaries of his with whom he shared a common mental life; men who had nothing to do from morning till night but to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. Only a wall—but what a wall!

The intentions as to reading, working, and learning, which he had so precisely formulated only a few minutes earlier, were suffering a curious collapse into a corner, he knew not how.

They had done nothing but wait, and had become poetical. How easy to the smallest building; how impossible to most men.

I can't bear that they, and everybody, should think people wicked because they may have chosen to live their own way!

I have sometimes thought--that under the affectation of independent views you are as enslaved to the social code as any woman I know!

It was quite impossible, he found, to ask to be delivered from temptation when your heart’s desire was to be tempted unto seventy times seven.

But nobody did come, because nobody does: and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out if the world.

I shan't forget you, Jude,' he said, smiling, as the cart moved off. 'Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can.

And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.

I can't bear that they,and everybody, should think people wicked because they may have chosen to live their own way!It is really these opinions that make the best intentioned people reckless, and actually become immoral!

I think that whenever children be born that are not wanted they should be killed directly, before their souls come to 'em, and not allowed to grow big and walk about!

Then if children make so much trouble, why do people have 'em?

If he had been a woman he must have screamed under the nervous tension which he was now undergoing. But that relief being denied to his virility, he clenched his teeth in misery, bringing lines about his mouth like those in the Laocoön, and corrugations between his brows.

Like enthusiasts in general, he made no inquiries into details of procedure.

Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come within.

Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women… O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?"—Esdras.

Why should we faint, and fear to live alone,Since all alone, so Heaven has will’d, we die?

Events did not rhyme quite as he had thought.

However you have lived, Sue, I believe you are as innocent as you are unconventional!

She was in a sound sleep, Jude, dying of anxiety lest she should have caught a chill which might permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warm flush now rosed her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanging hand was no longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fire regarding her, and saw in her almost a divinity.

A cloud that has gathered over us; though 'we have wronged no man, corrupted no man, defrauded no man!' Though perhaps we have 'done that which was right in our own eyes.

For the present he was outside the gates of everything, colleges included: perhaps some day he would be inside. Those palaces of light and leading; he might some day look down on the world through their panes.

But it was also obvious that man could not live by work alone; that the particular man Jude, at any rate, wanted something to love.

Every desired renewal of an existence is debased by being half alloy.

Beautiful city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!… Her ineffable charm keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection

Is it that the women are to blame; or is it the artificial system of things, under which the normal sex-impulses are turned into devilish domestic gins and springes to noose and hold back those who want to progress?

The purpose of a chronicler of moods and deeds does not require him to express his personal views upon the grave controversy above given.

Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes/I see the motley, mocking fool's-cap rise.