James Anthony Froude Quotes
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Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.
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Those who seek for something more than happiness in this world must not complain if happiness is not their portion.
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We live merely on the crust or rind of things.
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Now, to a single-minded man, who is either brave enough or reckless enough to surrender himself wholly to one idea, and look neither right nor left, but only forward, what earthly consequences may follow is not material. Persecution strengthens him; and so he is sure he is right, whether his course end in a prison or on a throne is no matter at all. But men of this calibre are uncommon in any age or in any country very uncommon in this age and this country.
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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.
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Courage is, on all hands, considered as an essential of high character.
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Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.
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Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual difficulties.
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Where all are selfish, the sage is no better than the fool, and only rather more dangerous.
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Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with.
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That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.
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Thirst of power and of riches now bear sway, The passion and infirmity of age.
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What is called virtue in the common sense of the word has nothing to do with this or that man's prosperity, or even happiness.
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I believe that fallen creatures perish, perish for ever, for only good can live, and good has not been theirs; but how durst men forge our Saviour's words "eternal death " into so horrible a meaning? And even if he did use other words, and seem to countenance such a meaning for them (and what witness have we that He did, except that of men whose ignorance or prejudice might well have interpreted these words wrongly as they did so many others?
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Men think to mend their condition by a change of circumstances. They might as well hope to escape from their shadows.
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Instead of man to love, we have a man-god to worship . From being the example of devotion, he is its object; the religion of Christ ended with his life , and left us instead but the Christian religion.
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To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.
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High original genius is always ridiculed on its first appearance; most of all by those who have won themselves the highest reputation in working on the established lines. Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.
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The solitary side of our nature demands leisure for reflection upon subjects on which the dash and whirl of daily business, so long as its clouds rise thick about us, forbid the intellect to fasten itself.
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I think Nature, if she interests herself much about her children, must often feel that, like the miserable Frankenstein, with her experimenting among the elements of humanity, she has brought beings into existence who have no business here; who can do none of her work, and endure none of her favours; whose life is only suffering; and whose action is one long protest against the ill foresight which flung them into consciousness.
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We must have the real thing before we can have a science of a thing.
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The superstition of science scoffs at the superstition of faith.
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Our thoughts and our conduct are our own.
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Who shall say that those poor peasants were not acting in the spirit we most venerate, most adore; that theirs was not the true heart language which we cannot choose but love? And what has been their reward? They have sent down their name to be the by-word of all after ages; the worst reproach of the worst men a name convertible with atheism and devil-worship.