“Life is more than a theory, and love of truth butters no bread: old men who have had to struggle along their way, who know the endless bitterness, the grave moral deterioration which follow an empty exchequer, may well be pardoned for an over-wish to see their sons secured from it; hunger, at least, is a reality…”

— James Anthony Froude, book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter VI
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Life is more than a theory, and love of truth butters no bread: old men who have had to struggle along their way, who k…" by James Anthony Froude?

James Anthony Froude111

English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fras… 1818–1894

Related quotes

“"The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality?”

Aleksandr Pushkin book The Queen of Spades

II.
The Queen of Spades (1833)

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Interview by Edward W. Desmond in TIME magazine (4 December 1989)
1980s

“There is some relationship between the hunger for truth and the search for the right words. This struggle may be ultimately indefinable and even undecidable, but one damn well knows it when one sees it.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

“The bread was dry and hard, only a scraping of butter was left, he was out of milk, all he had was some rather mediocre coffee, as we know, a man who had never found a woman who would love him enough to agree to join him in this hovel, such a man, apart from rare exceptions which have no place in this story, will never be more than a poor devil, it's odd that we always say poor devil and never poor god, […]”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 100

“Lord, give bread to the hungry, and hunger for you to those who have bread.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Dearly Beloved, Vol. III (1990)

“I no more wrote than read that book which is
The self I am, half hidden as it is
From one and all who see within a kiss
The lounging formless blackness of an abyss. How could I think the brief years were enough
To prove the reality of endless love?”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"I am a Book I neither Wrote nor Read"
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

“As fish in the water love deep places and wells and are most frequently found there, so wicked men have a great love to carnal security and have no will to strive against the stream. Fish love deep places best where there is least noise. Oh, how careful are natural men to keep all quiet, that there may be nothing to disturb them in their rest in sin! They love to be secure which is their destruction. O my soul, beware of carnal security, of being secure, though plunged over head and ears in sin.”

Thomas Boston (1676–1732) Scottish church leader, theologian and philosopher

The Art of Manfishing, First published 1699.
Primary Sources

““Knowledge is power.” This is the sentence that dug the grave of philosophy in the nineteenth century. … This sentence brings to an end the tradition of a knowledge that, as its name indicates, was an erotic theory—the love of truth and the truth through love (Liebeswahrheit). … Those who utter the sentence reveal the truth. However, with the utterance they want to achieve more than truth: They want to intervene in the game of power.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. xxvii

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 6; translated by W. K. Marriott

“Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: The Origin of Species

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

James Anthony Froude111

Related quotes

Related topics