James Anthony Froude quotes

James Anthony Froude was an English historian, novelist, and biographer renowned for his writings on English history and figures such as Thomas Carlyle. His works sparked considerable debate and controversy in the Victorian era, especially for their interpretations of the Reformation. He became a significant influence on historical scholarship and public opinion in nineteenth-century Britain. Here are 83 of his quotes:

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

James Anthony Froude

Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.

James Anthony Froude

Human improvement is from within outward.

James Anthony Froude

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

James Anthony Froude

As we advance in life, we learn the limits of our abilities.

James Anthony Froude

The trials of life will not wait for us. They come at their own time, not caring much to inquire how ready we may be to meet them.

James Anthony Froude

I believe in God, not because the Bible tells me that he is, but because my heart tells me so; and the same heart tells me we can only have His peace with us if we love Him and obey Him, and that we can only he happy when we each love our neighbour better than ourselves.

James Anthony Froude

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

James Anthony Froude

Life is change, to cease to change is to cease to live; yet if you may shed a tear beside the death-bed of an old friend, let not your heart be silent on the dissolving of a faith.

James Anthony Froude

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.

James Anthony Froude

I could never fear a God who kept a hell prison-house. No, not though he flung me there because I refused. There is a power stronger than such a one; and it is possible to walk unscathed even in the burning furnace.

James Anthony Froude

Look not to have your sepulchre built in after ages hy the same foolish hands which still ever destroy the living prophet. Small honour for you if they do build it; and may be they never will build it.

James Anthony Froude

I think there is a spiritual scent in us which feels mischief coming, as they say birds scent storms.

James Anthony Froude

The moral of human life is never simple, and the moral of a story which aims only at being true to human life cannot be expected to be any more so.

James Anthony Froude

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

James Anthony Froude

I cut a hole in my heart and wrote with the blood.

James Anthony Froude

A dreamer he was, and ever would be. Yet dreaming need not injure us, if it do but take its turn with waking; and even dreams themselves may be turned to beauty, by favoured men to whom nature has given the powers of casting them into form.

James Anthony Froude

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.

James Anthony Froude

I would sooner perish for ever than stoop down before a Being who may have power to crush me, but whom my heart forbids me to reverence.

James Anthony Froude

Scepticism, like wisdom, springs out in full panoply only from the brain of a god, and it is little profit to see an idea in its growth, unless we track its seed to the power which sowed it.

James Anthony Froude

We call heaven our home, as the best name we know to give it.

James Anthony Froude

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.

James Anthony Froude