Explore Quotes by James Anthony Froude

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

We enter the world alone, we leave the world alone.

Superior strength is found in the long run to lie with those who had right on their side.

Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.

We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.

Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.

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.

I cannot think the disputes and jealousies of Heaven are tried and settled by the swords of earth.

The Providence that watches over the affairs of men works out of their mistakes, at times, a healthier issue than could have been accomplished by their wisest forethought.

Nature is less partial than she appears, and all situations in life have their compensations along with them.

A person possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with.

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.

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.

The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness.

Justice without wisdom is impossible.

To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.

The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.

Human improvement is from within outward.

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.

The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.