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Quote#Solitude

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable…

Quote byThomas Hardy · 1840–1928

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Ch. 2.

English (original)

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction — every kind of evidence in the logician's list — have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.

— Thomas Hardy

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