"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."

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on work by Thomas Hardy resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in work is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist, poet and architect. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England.

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the ShortQuote Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Thomas Hardy

"Fear is the mother of foresight."

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

— Thomas Hardy
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"Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle."

— Thomas Hardy
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"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
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More about Work

"I like people who are enthused about things they do, like travel, sports, work. I like being with people who have things they're excited about."

— Parker Stevenson
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"It's like you always have to put on a happy face, be the phony baloney, and I'm so not that. I never was that I'll never be that. That is part of the business that I don't like. Maybe that will always keep me an outsider, I don't know. But that's fine."

— Chloe Sevigny
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"Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future."

— Brian Tracy
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"Just as it takes time for a speck of fish spawn to develop into a fully grown fish, so, too, we need time for everything that develops and crystallizes in the world of ideas. Architecture demands more of this time than other creative work."

— Alvar Aalto
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