I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on.

Meaning of the quote

This quote is saying that even though our physical bodies will eventually fade away, the memory and legacy of our family will live on. The writer is like the face or image of their family, which will continue to exist even after they are gone. The idea is that the impact we have on our loved ones is more important than our temporary physical form.

About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was an acclaimed English novelist and poet who lived during the Victorian era. He is known for his tragic novels that explored the struggles of rural people in Britain, and his poetry was highly respected by other writers. Despite being primarily a poet, Hardy first gained fame as a novelist before his poetry collections were published later in life.

More about the author

More quotes from Thomas Hardy

A woman would rather visit her own grave than the place where she has been young and beautiful after she is aged and ugly.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Give the enemy not only a road for flight, but also a means of defending it.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

And yet to every bad there is a worse.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

You was a good man, and did good things.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

That man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn’t there.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

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

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Fear is the mother of foresight.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Some folk want their luck buttered.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Dialect words are those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you’d treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

No one can read with profit that which he cannot learn to read with pleasure.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Aspect are within us, and who seems most kingly is king.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.

Thomas Hardy

English novelist and poet (1840-1928)