Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.

His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.

Never learn to do anything: if you don't learn, you'll always find someone else to do it for you.

If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.

A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditchdigging. It is the insanest of all recreations. The inventor of it overlooked no detail that could furnish weariness, distress, harassment, and acute and long-sustained misery of mind and body.