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

“The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilst strong, required no enunciation to prove it so.”

“Ever since his first ecstasy or vision of Christminster and its possibilities, Jude had meditated much and curiously on the probable sort of process that was involved in turning the expressions of one language into those of another. He concluded that a grammar of the required tongue would contain, primarily, a rule, prescription, or clue of the nature of a secret cipher, which, once known, would enable him, by merely applying it, to change at will all words of his own speech into those of the foreign one. His childish idea was, in fact, a pushing to the extremity of mathematical precision what is everywhere known as Grimm's Law—an aggrandizement of rough rules to ideal completeness. Thus he assumed that the words of the required language were always to be found somewhere latent in the words of the given language by those who had the art to uncover them, such art being furnished by the books aforesaid.”

“How strange and god-like was a composer's power, who from the grave could lead through sequences of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name, and never would have a clue to his personality.”

“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.”

“Ah, are you digging on my grave,My loved one? -- planting rue?"-- "No: yesterday he went to wedOne of the brightest wealth has bred.'It cannot hurt her now,' he said,'That I should not be true.'""Then who is digging on my grave,My nearest dearest kin?"-- "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What use!What good will planting flowers produce?No tendance of her mound can looseHer spirit from Death's gin.'""But someone digs upon my grave?My enemy? -- prodding sly?"-- "Nay: when she heard you had passed the GateThat shuts on all flesh soon or late,She thought you no more worth her hate,And cares not where you lie."Then, who is digging on my grave?Say -- since I have not guessed!"-- "O it is I, my mistress dear,Your little dog, who still lives near,And much I hope my movements hereHave not disturbed your rest?""Ah yes! You dig upon my grave...Why flashed it not to meThat one true heart was left behind!What feeling do we ever findTo equal among human kindA dog's fidelity!""Mistress, I dug upon your graveTo bury a bone, in caseI should be hungry near this spotWhen passing on my daily trot.I am sorry, but I quite forgotIt was your resting place.”

“...it is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then.”