James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude FRSEwas an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergyman, but doubts about the doctrines of the Anglican church, published in his scandalous 1849 novel The Nemesis of Faith, drove him to abandon his religious career. Froude turned to writing history, becoming one of the best known historians of his time for his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth23 April 1818
James Anthony Froude quotes about
Truth only smells sweet forever, and illusions, however innocent, are deadly as the canker worm.
The soul of man is not a thing which comes and goes, is builded and decays like the elemental frame in which it is set to dwell, but a very living force, a very energy of God's organic will, which rules and moulds this universe.
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.
The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.
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.
Where nature is sovereign, there is no need of austerity and self-denial.
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.
Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with.
The best that we can do for one another is to exchange our thoughts freely; and that, after all, is about all.
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.
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.
It is ill changing the creed to meet each rising temptation. The soul is truer than it seems, and refuses to be trifled with.
To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.
Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence.