How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The instinctive act of human-kind was to stand, and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chanted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir. (2.4)
As the narrator tells us, it is natural for humans to have a deep sense of connection to the world around them, even though this connection might be lost for many people who live in modern cities.
Quote #2
"'Tis blowed about from pillar to post quite common […] We hear that ye can tell the time as well by the stars as we can by the sun and moon, shepherd." (15.78)
When the workmen on Bathsheba's farm first meet Gabriel Oak, they are very impressed by his ability to tell what time it is by looking at the stars. This ability just goes to show that Oak has a more intimate connection with nature than all of the people around him.
Quote #3
It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may supposed the Dryads to be waking for the season—The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations […] there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-altogether. (18.10)
Thomas Hardy really wants to convey to us a sense of what it's like to be as close to nature as someone like Gabriel Oak. Through his descriptive language, he tries to give us an idea of all the different sounds you might hear if you really, really stop to listen to the sound of the wind blowing through trees and bushes.
Quote #4
Gabriel had skinned the dead lamb, and was tying the skin over the body of the live lamb in the customary manner. (18.15)
Gabriel might love his lambs, but he's not exactly sentimental about it. If one of his lambs dies, for example, he's got no problem skinning the thing and tying its skin around another lamb that needs to get warm.
Quote #5
Every drop of moisture not in the men's bottles and flagons in the form of cider or ale was raining as perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere else. (33.3)
When a long drought threatens to ruin the crops on the farms, the workmen feel it very deeply. It's almost as if they can feel the thirst of the crops for water, because they go to the pub to drink some cider themselves, almost as a sign of sympathy.
Quote #6
Oak's eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side, where it led up to a huge brown garden slug, which had come indoors to-night for reasons of its own. It was Nature's second way of hinting to him that he was to prepare for foul weather. (36.24)
When Oak thinks about covering up Bathsheba's crops, the most important thing he can do is determine whether it's going to rain. And a guy who's as skilled and experienced as Oak can quickly look to nature to find out what's going to happen. In this case, he sees that a garden slug has gone from outdoors to indoors, meaning that it's probably going to rain.
Quote #7
This reminded him that if there was one class of manifestation on this matter that he thoroughly understood, it was the instincts of sheep. (36.25)
If there's one thing Gabriel Oak knows, it's sheep. And not just which part of them tastes the best. Oak knows why sheep behave certain ways at certain times, and he can use this knowledge to prepare for coming weather.
Quote #8
[The sheep] had now a terror of something greater than their terror of man. (36.26)
As the narrator notes, sheep aren't dumb. They know enough to know that they should be terrified of humans, who shear them for the wool or kill them for their meat. But in this passage, we find out that there's something they're even more scared of, and that's lightning storms.
Quote #9
[The flash] sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. (37.21)
You get a lot of very poetic metaphors in this book, and one of the most awesome is a lightning strike as a "dance of death." By using personification to make the lightning sound like it's dancing, Hardy creates a very clear connection between nature and humanity.
Quote #10
Gabriel was almost blinded, and he could feel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand—a sensation novel and thrilling enough: but love, life, everything human, seemed small and trifling in such close juxtaposition with an infuriated universe. (37.21)
When Bathsheba tries to help him cover up her crops, Gabriel is thrilled to touch her trembling arm. But what makes the scene even more powerful for him is the way that he and Bathsheba stand together while the world around them crashes with lightning. It seems as though she and he are the only people left in a harsh universe, and there's something about this that Gabriel finds very romantic.