James Anthony Froude Quotes
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True greatness is the most ready to recognize and most willing to obey those simple outward laws which have been sanctioned by the experience of mankind.
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English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.
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Charity is from person to person; and it loses half, far more than half, its moral value when the giver is not brought into personal relation with those to whom he gives.
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Fear is the parent of cruelty.
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In every department of life--in its business and in its pleasures, in its beliefs and in its theories, in its material developments and in its spiritual connections--we thank God that we are not like our fathers.
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Of all the evil spirits abroad at this hour in the world, insincerity is the most dangerous.
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Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.
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I think there is a spiritual scent in us which feels mischief coming, as they say birds scent storms.
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Thy plain and open nature sees mankind But in appearance, not what they are.
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There is always a part of our being into which those who are dearer to us far than our own lives are yet unable to enter.
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You cannot reason people into loving those whom they are not drawn to love; they cannot reason themselves into it; and there are some contrarieties of temper which are too strong even for the obligations of relationship.
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Women's eyes are rapid in detecting a heart which is ill at ease with itself, and, knowing the value of sympathy, and finding their own greatest happiness not in receiving it, but in giving it, with them to be unhappy is at once to be interesting.
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Where nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self-denial.
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Nature is not a partisan, but out of her ample treasue house she produces children in infinite variety, of which she is equally the mother, and disowns none of them.
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Do you not think that sometimes when matters are at the worst with us, when we appear to have done all which we ourselves can do, yet all has been unavailing, and we have only shown we cannot, not we will not, help ourselves; that often just then something comes, almost as if supernaturally, to settle for us, as if our guardian angel took pity on our perplexities, and then at last obtained leave to help us? And if it be so, then what might only be a coincidence becomes a call of Providence, a voice from Heaven, a command.
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The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the uniform fruit of a particular mode of opinion, it is childish to argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have been different.
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I cannot think the disputes and jealousies of Heaven are tried and settled by the swords of earth.
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Sacrifice is the first element of religion, and resolves itself in theological language into the love of God.
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Woe to the unlucky man who as a child is taught, even as a portion of his creed, what his grown reason must forswear.
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If you think you can temper yourself into manliness by sitting here over your books, it is the very silliest fancy that ever tempted a young man to his ruin. You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
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Morality rests upon a sense of obligation; and obligation has no meaning except as implying a Divine command, without which it would cease to be.
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We are complex, and therefore, in our natural state, inconsistent, beings, and the opinion of this hour need not be the opinion of the next.
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Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.
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History is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.