I think Nature, if she interests herself much about her children, must often feel that, like the miserable Frankenstein, with her experimenting among… - James Anthony Froude

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

It often seems to me as if History was like a child's box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We have only to pick out such letters as we want, arrange them as we like, and say nothing about those which do not suit our purpose.

Now, to a single-minded man, who is either brave enough or reckless enough to surrender himself wholly to one idea, and look neither right nor left, but only forward, what earthly consequences may follow is not material. Persecution strengthens him; and so he is sure he is right, whether his course end in a prison or on a throne is no matter at all. But men of this calibre are uncommon in any age or in any country — very uncommon in this age and this country.