James F. Cooper Quotes

Quotes about:

• All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.

  James F. Cooper

  Character, Greatness, Men

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Essay by James F. Cooper, 1838.

  51 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Men, Evil, Dies

  17 Copy quote

• Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to publick opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem the true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, and the wrong the right.

  James F. Cooper

  Government, Enemy, Society

  1 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Inspirational, Motivational, Ignorance

  18 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Lonely, Nature, Earth Day

  14 Copy quote

• Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies.

  James F. Cooper

  Hope, Fancy, Humans

  14 Copy quote

• Individuality is the aim of political liberty.

  James F. Cooper

  Political, Individuality, Liberty

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, "On Individuality", 1838.

  12 Copy quote

• The air, the water and the ground are free gifts to man and no one has the power to portion them out in parcels. Man must drink and breathe and walk and therefore each man has a right to his share of each.

  James F. Cooper

  Men, Air, Free Gifts

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Winning, Hymns, Air

  3 Copy quote

• Commerce is entitled to a complete and efficient protection in all its legal rights, but the moment it presumes to control a country, or to substitute its fluctuating expedients for the high principles of natural justice that ought to lie at the root of every political system, it should be frowned on, and rebuked.

  James F. Cooper

  Country, Lying, Law

  6 Copy quote

• The demagogue is usually sly, a detractor of others, a professor of humility and disinterestedness, a great stickler for equality as respects all above him, a man who acts in corners, and avoids open and manly expositions of his course, calls blackguards gentlemen, and gentlemen folks, appeals to passions and prejudices rather than to reason, and is in all respects, a man of intrigue and deception, of sly cunning and management.

  James F. Cooper

  Passion, Humility, Men

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

  4 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Mind, Lasts, Ability

  1 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Book, Eye, Vastness

  0 Copy quote

• I can't see no great difference atween givin' up territory afore a war, out of a dread of war, and givin' it up after a war, because we can't help it-unless it be that the last is the most manful and honourable.

  James F. Cooper

  War, Differences, Territory

  7 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Love, Hero, History

  5 Copy quote

• Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
  Equality of rights is a peculiar feature of democracies. These rights are properly divided into civil and political, though even these definitions are not to be taken as absolute, or as literally exact.

  James F. Cooper

  Military, Men, Law

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

  3 Copy quote

• There are evils worse than death.

  James F. Cooper

  Evil

  5 Copy quote

• What will the axemen do, when they have cut their way from sea to sea?

  James F. Cooper

  Cutting, Sea, Tree

  4 Copy quote

• If the newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own.

  James F. Cooper

  Tyrants, Newspapers, Tyranny

  2 Copy quote

• Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.

  James F. Cooper

  Mean, Rights, Government

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

  12 Copy quote

• America owes most of its social prejudices to the exaggerated religious opinions of the different sects which were so instrumental in establishing the colonies.

  James F. Cooper

  Religious, America, Different

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

  3 Copy quote

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

  James F. Cooper

  Ambition, Simplicity, Abuse

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

  4 Copy quote

• Principles . . . become modified in practice, by facts.

  James F. Cooper

  Reality, Practice, Principles

  0 Copy quote

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Country, Kings, America

  0 Copy quote

• We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true; though happily for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned, are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating, if not excusing its crimes.

  James F. Cooper

  Men, Selfishness, World

  1 Copy quote

Page 1 of 5

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin