Quotes by James Froude

• Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.
• The better one is morally the less aware they are of their virtue.
• The endurance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society.
• The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.
• The first duty of an historian is to be on guard against his own sympathies.
• The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness.
• You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
• The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.
• Superior strength is found in the long run to lie with those who had right on their side.
• To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.
• Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.
• No person is ever good for much, that hasn't been swept off their feet by enthusiasm between ages twenty and thirty.
• Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.
• In everyday things the law of sacrifice takes the form of positive duty.
• Human improvement is from within outward.
• Fear is the parent of cruelty.
• Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.
• As we advance in life, we learn the limits of our abilities.
• Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
• A person possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with.
• Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive.
• We enter the world alone, we leave the world alone.