As I was saying when I was interrupted, it is a powerful hard thing to please all of the people all of the time.

-Connor, Sir William Neil pseudonym Cassandra
  On resuming his Cassandra column in the Daily Mirror, Sep, after the end of  World War II.

'Hard,'replied the Dodger.'As nails,'added Charley Bates.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^9  Oliver Twist, ch.9.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money was not scarce?

-Emerson, RalphWaldo
  Society and Solitude,'Works and Days'.

I wanted your soft verges But you gave me the hard shoulder.

-Henri, Adrian Maurice
  'Song of a Beautiful Girl Petrol-pump  Attendant'.

If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult.

-Heraclitus   fl.500
Collected in Charles H Kahn The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979).

It is said to be hard on His Majesty's Ministers to raise objections to this proposition. For my part, I think it no more hard on His Majesty's Opposition to compel them to take this course.

-Hobhouse,John Cam, 1st Baron Broughton
  House of Commons, 27  Apr. This is thefirst recordeduse of the term'His Majesty's Opposition'.

   Totakeanalmost religiousview, thisearthisnothing very special.There have probably been millions of earths just like ours each producing a particular intelligent species. That isnottosay thattheyall developed well, thattheyall achieved some sort of perfection. And if the planner made lots of them and some of them chose to destroy themselves,thenwe canonlysupposethattheplanner is a hard and practical man.

-Hoyle, Sir Fred
  In the Daily Mail.

How heroic to be able to suppress one's vanity to the extent of confessing that the game is too hard.

-James, Alice
  On suicide. Diary entry, 5  Aug.

In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but atrue one, that Iknewalmost asmuchateighteenas I do now.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark, 21  Jul. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

Thething isit'sreally hard tobe room-mateswith people if your suitcases are much better than theirsöif yours are really good and theirs aren't.You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humour, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do.

-Salinger,J(erome) D(avid)
The Catcher in the Rye, ch.15.

Remember there is no success without hard work.

-Sophocles
Electra, 945 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).

The woman is so hard Upon the woman.

-Tennyson
  The Princess, pt.6, l.205^6.