James Anthony Froude

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.

The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies; but he cannot wholly escape their influence.

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.

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

On the whole, and as a rule, superior strength is the equivalent of superior merit; and when a weaker people are induced or forced to part with their separate existence, and are not treated as subjects, but are admitted freely to share the …

When the ties of kindred and of speech have force enough to bind together a powerful community, such a community may be able to defend its independence. If it fail, the pretension in itself has no claim on the consideration of the rest of …

Unfortunately the wrong man was generally assassinated. The true criminal was an absentee, and his agent was shot instead of him.

The landlord may become a direct oppressor. He may care nothing for the people, and have no object but to squeeze the most that he can out of them fairly or unfairly.

The philosophic historian, studying hereafter this present age, in which we are ourselves living, may say that it was a time of unexampled prosperity, luxury, and wealth; but catching at certain horrible murders which have lately disgraced …

She confessed her witchcraft — so tried, she would have confessed to the seven deadly sins — and then she was burned, recalling her confession, and with her last breath protesting her innocence. It is due to the intelligence of the time to …

When Alison Balfour's life was looked into, no evidence could be found connecting her either with the particular offence or with witchcraft in general; but it was enough in these matters to be accused.

It remains a lesson to all time, that goodness, though the indispensable adjunct to knowledge, is no substitute for it; that when conscience undertakes to dictate beyond its province, the result is only the more monstrous.

Christ came bringing with him the knowledge that God was not a demon, but a being of infinite goodness—that the service required of mankind was not a service of ceremony, but a service of obedience and love—obedience to laws of morality, …

Perhaps the heart does not deceive; never does give a false answer, except to those double-minded unhappy ones who do care about themselves, and so play tricks with it and tamper with it.

How true it is that arguments have only power over us while the temper is disposed to listen to them!

To man alone the doings of man are wrong; the evil which is with us dies out beyond us; we are but a part of nature, and blend with the rest in her persevering beauty.

All, all nature is harmonious, and must and shall be harmony for ever; even we, poor men, with our wild ways and frantic wrongs, and crimes, and follies, to the beings out beyond us and above us, seem, doubtless, moving on our own way …

When a woman's heart is flowing over for the first time with deep and passionate love, she is all love. Every faculty of her soul rushes together in the intensity of the one feeling; thought, reflection, conscience, duty, the past, the …

Our characters change as world eras change, as our features change, slowly from day to day.

It is strange, when something rises before us as a possibility which we have hitherto believed to be very dreadful, we fancy it is a great crisis; that when we pass it we shall be different beings; some mighty change will have swept over …

It is ill changing the creed to meet each rising temptation. The soul is truer than it seems, and refuses to be trifled with.

She would gladly have been more to him than she could be — because she felt (she did not deny it to herself) that she would sooner have been his wife than Leonard's. But why, because they could not be all to one another, must they be as …

Women's eyes are rapid in detecting a heart which is ill at ease with itself, and, knowing the value of sympathy, and finding their own greatest happiness not in receiving it, but in giving it, with them to be unhappy is at once to be …

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.