It is no wonder you are confused on the subject of hardness and toughness
twynn5586. This confusion is the natural result of talking to people who are themselves confused ie.
the blind leading the blind.
Since I am a sighted person in the land of the blind

I will try to properly explain both hardness and toughness. As an added bonus I will also try to explain how they are related in the world of knife steel.
First you must know your terms:
Hardness is defined to be
"the ability of a material to withstand indentation by another hard object".
Toughness is defined to be
"the amount of impact energy the material is able to absorb before failure".
Now that we know what hardness and toughness are how do we go about measuring them?
Hardness is most commonly measured using the
Rockwell Hardness Test. In this test an indenter is pressed into the surface of the material being tested. The test compares the difference in penetration between a minor initial load (98N) and a major additional load. The result of the test is read directly from machine. The Rockwell Hardness Test provides for different hardness scales for different materials.
Code:
Rockwell Scales
Scale Indenter Additional Force(kN) Application
A 120° Diamond Cone 0.59 Sheet steel ; shallow case hardened
B Ball dia 1.588mm 0.98 Copper, Aluminum alloys, Low Carbon Steel
C 120° Diamond Cone 1.47 Most Widely Used -Hardened Steels, Cast irons etc
D 120° Diamond Cone 0.98 Thin but Hard steels
The C scale is used for hardened knife steels. So if you see something like "58 HRc" or "58 Rc" or "58 Rockwell" or "hardness of 58" etc. the author probably means that the knife blade has (or claims to have; many makers lie about this) a hardness of 58 on the Rockwell C Scale. Higher numbers indicate harder materials.
In practical terms the hardness of a blade determines the blade's resistance to scratching and edge roll. Increased hardness also strongly correlates with increased abrasion resistance in a given material.
Toughness is usually measured with a
Charpy Impact Testing machine (see
link for a more complete explanation). This machine measures the amount of energy absorbed when a standard sample is broken by impact. This energy is usually given in either foot-pounds (ft-lb) or newtons (N). Due to end user ignorance charpy results are rarely advertised. Instead meaningless marketing terms are used; examples include "tough", "strong", "resilient", "durable", "robust" etc. Higher charpy numbers indicate tougher materials.
In practical terms the toughness of a blade determines both the amount of abuse (prying, impact loading etc.) the blade will withstand and the blades resistance to chipping.
Now that we know what hardness and toughness are how do they relate to knife steels?
First you should know that in a given steel as you raise the hardness the toughness decreases. This relationship is due to the physics of the material and the mechanics of crack propagation and is
not related in any meaningful way to the type of heat treatment, quenching agent, tempering method, forging technique, mystical incantations etc. the maker used.
So to get an improved combination of toughness and hardness you must change materials, nothing else will help.
If you need more explanation/clarification let me know.