How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Love, being an extremely exacting usurer (a sense of exorbitant profit spiritually, as that of exorbitant profit bodily or materially is at the bottom of those of lower atmosphere) every morning Oak's feelings were as sensitive as the Money Market in calculations upon his chances. (4.3)
In a long and confusing metaphor, Hardy tells us that Gabriel Oak tends to wake up each day thinking about his chances with Bathsheba in the same way a stock trader thinks about his chances of making a lot of money on a given day.
Quote #2
Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Marriage transforms a distraction into a support the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants. (4.5)
In short, love can sometimes turns people's weaknesses into strengths. For example, if you're a greedy person might turn into a super generous one and buy lots of nice things for your sweetheart. A greedy person would take their distraction (an appreciation of the value of money and nice things) and turn it into a support (sharing money and nice things with your beloved). Love makes horrible people into awesome people.
Quote #3
It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail. (5.2)
No doubt about it. It's a lot easier to fall in love than it is to get out of love once you've been rejected. Some people—cynically people, really—think that the easiest way to kill your love for someone is to marry that person. Hardy har har, Thomas Hardy. Good one.
Quote #4
Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. (29.2)
One of the main reasons that Bathsheba comes to love Sergeant Troy so much is his ability to break through her shell of pride and independence. Through a combination of good looks, charm, and constant compliments, Troy is able to charm Bathsheba to the point that she totally lets down her guard and admits that she wants him. This only makes her love him all the more, since she's not used to feeling this reliant on another person.
Quote #5
"You know what that feeling is […] A thing strong as death. No dismissal by a hasty letter affects that." (31.12)
Boldwood informs Bathsheba that she's not going to get rid of him with something as small as a quickly written letter. No, no. If she wants him gone, she needs to tell him to his face why they can't be together.
Quote #6
"Your dear love, Bathsheba, is such a vast thing beside your pity that the loss of your pity as well as your love is no great addition to my sorrow, nor does the grain of your pity make it sensibly less." (31.26)
Boldwood isn't interested in the fact that Bathsheba feels bad for him. All he's interested in is making her love him. But apparently he can't do that, so he doesn't want her to go making herself feel better by telling him she's sorry.
Quote #7
Faint sounds came from the barn, and he looked that way. Figures stepped singly and in pairs through the doors—all walking awkwardly, and abashed, save the foremost who wore a red jacket, and advanced with his hands in his pockets, whistling. (38.5)
Sergeant Troy has a lot of trouble loving anything or anyone except himself. He even turns Bathsheba away from their wedding celebrations so that he can get drunk with a bunch of his new employees. The next morning, everyone stumbles out of the barn feeling terrible with hangovers. But Troy just skips out and whistles, showing that he couldn't care less about other people's feelings.
Quote #8
For those few heavenly golden moments she had been in his arms. What did it matter about her not knowing it?—she had been close to his breast; he had been close to hers. (48.12)
Farmer Boldwood gets into creep territory when he catches Bathsheba fainting at a market and takes a moment to savor the feeling of her in his arms. The fact that he specifically doesn't care whether she's conscious shows how little this guy respects Bathsheba as a person. He's gotten it into his head that he wants her as a wife, but in reality his love is just based on a desire to possess her, rather than spend time with her while she's conscious.
Quote #9
This fevered hope had grown up again like a grain of mustard-seed during the quiet which followed the hasty conjecture that Troy was drowned. (49.7)
Being a selfish man when it comes to love, Farmer Boldwood has trouble hiding his enthusiasm when he finds out that Bathsheba's husband has died while swimming. It takes him next to no time to decide that he's going to move in on Bathsheba and ask her, once again, to marry him.
Quote #10
"The real sin, ma'am, in my mind lies in thinking of ever wedding wi' a man you don't love honest and true." (51.59)
When asked his opinion about Boldwood, Gabriel Oak can only say that it's wrong for someone to marry a person they don't love. Bathsheba thinks her case is more complicated than this, since she feels like she owes Boldwood something. But Oak holds firm and says that it doesn't matter what she thinks she owes; she should never marry a man she doesn't love. One again Oak = a highly reasonable dude.