James Anthony Froude Quotes
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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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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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Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.
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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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Carlyle! Carlyle only raises questions he cannot answer, and seems best contented if he can make the rest of us as discontented as himself; and all the others, all, that is, who have any power at all, fight beside religion, either as if it were not worth saving, or as if it had nothing to do with them.
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We live merely on the crust or rind of things.
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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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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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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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To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Morality, when vigorously alive, sees farther than intellect, and provides unconsciously for intellectual difficulties.
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Our thoughts and our conduct are our own.
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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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Justice without wisdom is impossible.
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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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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.
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Thirst of power and of riches now bear sway, The passion and infirmity of age.
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The superstition of science scoffs at the superstition of faith.