James F. Cooper Quotes

All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities.

Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young.

All greatness of character is dependent on individuality.

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

Death is appalling to those of the most iron nerves, when it comes quietly and in the stillness and solitude of night.

Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the seasons is unbroken.

Property is desirable as the ground work of moral independence, as a means of improving the faculties, and of doing good to others, and as the agent in all that distinguishes the civilized man from the savage.

Aristocracy: A combination of many powerful men, for the purpose of maintaining their own particular interests. It is consequently a concentration of all the most effective parts of a community for a given end, hence its energy, efficiency and success.

There is a destiny in war, to which a brave man knows how to submit with the same courage that he faces his foes.

Individuality is the aim of political liberty.

Much was said and written, at the time, concerning the policy of adding the vast regions of Louisiana, to the already immense, and but half-tenanted territories of the United-States.

History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore.

It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil.

The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false is one of the last attainments of the human mind.

Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship these intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas like drops of falling rain.

Where are your combing seas, your blue water, your rollers, your breakers, your whales, or your waterspouts, and your endless motion, in this bit of a forest, child?

The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority.

Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.

They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have boldly affirmed that 'one man is as good as another'; a maxim that is true in neither nature, revealed morals, nor political theory.

A single glance at the map will make the reader acquainted with the position of the eastern coast of the island of Great Britain, as connected with the shores of the opposite continent.

Near the centre of that State of New York lies an extensive district of country, whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys.

The sun had not risen, but the vault of heaven was rich with the winning, softness that "brings and shuts the day," while the whole air was filled with the carols of birds, the hymns of the feathered tribe.

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannogt congeal in winter.

Superstition is a quality that seems indigenous to the ocean.

The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference.

In America, it is indispensable that every well wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of tyranny can only proceed from the publick. The publick, then, is to be watched, in this country, as, in other countries kings and aristocrats are to be watched.

The sublimity connected with vastness, is familiar to every eye.

The sight of a coward's blood can never make a warrior tremble.

Battles, unlike bargains, are rarely discussed in society.

The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.

No star seemed less than what science has taught us that it is.

In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.

The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.

Liberty is not a matter of words, but a positive and important condition of society. Its greatest safeguard after placing its foundations on a popular base, is in the checks and balances imposed on the public servants.

The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.

It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience!

I've heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may so deform his works in the settlements, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests.

Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies.

We are all human, and all do wrong.

An interesting fiction... however paradoxical the assertion may appear... addresses our love of truth- not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and principals, which is a primitive law of the human mind.

It is seldom men think of death in the pride of their health and strength.

No one, who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American commercial town, would recognise, in the repose which now reigns in the ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked amongst the most important ports along the whole line of our extended coast.

We can all perceive the difference between ourselves and our inferiors, but when it comes to a question of the difference between us and our superiors we fail to appreciate merits of which we have no proper conceptions.

Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion.

The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste

A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all high bred deportment, in every country, and a considerate humanity should be the aim of all beneath it.