James F. Cooper Quotes - Page 3

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• 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.

  7 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

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• 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

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• As for bread, I count that for nothin'. We always have bread and potatoes enough; but I hold a family to be in a desperate way when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel. Give me children that's raised on good sound pork afore all the game in the country. Game's good as a relish and so's bread; but pork is the staff of life... My children I calkerlate to bring up on pork with just as much bread and butter as they want.

  James F. Cooper

  Country, Mother, Children

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Freedom, Men, Democracies Have

  "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

• It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered, before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide, and, apparently, an impervious boundary of forests, severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict.

  James F. Cooper

  War, Struggle, Book

  "The Last of the Mohicans". Book by James F. Cooper, 1826.

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Government, Balance, Important

  "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

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Country, New York, Lying

  9 Copy quote

• On the human imagination events produce the effects of time.

  James F. Cooper

  Time, Imagination, Events

  7 Copy quote

• Superstition is a quality that seems indigenous to the ocean.

  James F. Cooper

  Ocean, Quality, Superstitions

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• On the human imagination, events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much, is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents, soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.

  James F. Cooper

  Time, Long, Imagination

  4 Copy quote

• We are all human, and all do wrong.

  James F. Cooper

  Humans

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• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Agency, Evil, Principles

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James F. Cooper (Conclusion, p. 191), 1838.

  8 Copy quote

• God planted the seeds of all the trees," continued Hetty, after a moment's pause, "and you see to what a height and shade they have grown! So it is with the Bible. You may read a verse this year, and forget it, and it will come back to you a year hence, when you least expect to remember it.

  James F. Cooper

  Years, Tree, May

  4 Copy quote

• Some changes of language are to be regretted, as they lead to false inferences, and society is always a loser by mistaking names for things.

  James F. Cooper

  Names, Loser, Language

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

  4 Copy quote

• The habit of seen the public rule, is gradually accustoming the American mind to an interference with private rights that is slowly undermining the individuality of the national character. There is getting to be so much public right, that private right is overshadowed and lost. A danger exists that the ends of liberty will be forgotten altogether in the means.

  James F. Cooper

  Character, Mean, Rights

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

  James F. Cooper

  Freedom, Abuse, Democracy

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James F. Cooper (Conclusion, p. 191), 1838.

  8 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Mean, Equality, Rights

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

  7 Copy quote

• The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior of those who are not, so long he is the repository of power.

  James F. Cooper

  Government, Long, Office

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

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Christian, Lying, School

  "The American Democrat: The Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, p. 207, April 1, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

• The vulgar charge that the tendency of democracies is to leveling, meaning to drag all down to the level of the lowest, is singularly untrue; its real tendency being to elevate the depressed to a condition not unworthy of their manhood.

  James F. Cooper

  Real, Democracy, Levels

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• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Mean, Government, Political

  85 Copy quote

• I do not pretend that all that white men do is properly Christianized.

  James F. Cooper

  Men, White Man, White

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• The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority. Unrestrained political authority, though it be confided to masses, cannot be trusted without positive limitations, men in bodies being but an aggregation of the passions, weaknesses and interests of men as individuals.

  James F. Cooper

  Passion, Power, Men

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, p. 191, 1838.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  James F. Cooper

  Book, Men, Doubt

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