James Cooper Quotes & Sayings

It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view; for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master. — James F. Cooper

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

What will the axemen do, when they have cut their way from sea to sea? — James F. Cooper

I care not for your envy, or your hypocrisy, or even for your human nature. — James Fenimore Cooper

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

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

Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that matter, I've known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got to be of the least value. — James Fenimore Cooper

The result of this conversation was a sudden determination to produce a work which, if it had no other merit, might present truer pictures of the ocean and ships than any that are to be found in the Pirate. — James Fenimore Cooper

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

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. — James Fenimore Cooper

The woods are but the ears of the Almighty, the air is his breath, and the light of the sun is little more than a glance of his eye. — James Fenimore Cooper

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. In no other way can we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of ordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits of the republic ... Thus, what seems venerable by an accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when we come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time. — James Fenimore Cooper

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 Fenimore Cooper

Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies. — James F. Cooper

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. — James Fenimore Cooper

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 Fenimore Cooper

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. — James F. Cooper

The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior to those who are not, so long as he is the repository of power, and the child inherits the wealth of the parent as a controlling law of society. — James F. Cooper

Tis hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below them. — James Fenimore Cooper

...nothing that crawls the earth is for my sport. — James Fenimore Cooper

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

If a man believed all that other people choose to say in their own favor, he might get an oversized opinion of them, and an undersized opinion of himself. — James Fenimore Cooper

Is it justice to make evil, and then punish for it? — James Fenimore Cooper

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

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

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 Fenimore Cooper

The arches of the woods, even at high noon, cast their sombre shadows on the spot, which the brilliant rays of the sun that struggled through the leaves contributed to mellow, and if such an expression can be used, to illuminate. It was probably from a similar scene that the mind of man first got its idea of the effects of gothic tracery and churchly hues, this temple of nature producing some such effect, so far as light and shadow were concerned, as the well-known offspring of human invention. — James Fenimore Cooper

The manner in which the Americans are subdivided into sects also conflicts with any commendable desire that may exist to build glorious temples in honor of the Deity: and convenience is more consulted than taste, perhaps, in all that relates to ecclesiastical architecture. Nevertheless, — James Fenimore Cooper

I want no thunder or lightning to remind me of my God, nor am I as apt to bethink on most of all His goodness in trouble and tribulations as on a calm, solemn, quiet day in a forest, when His voice is heard in the creaking of a dead branch or in the song of a bird, as much in my ears at least as it is ever heard in uproar and gales. — James Fenimore Cooper

It is seldom men think of death in the pride of their health and strength. — James F. Cooper

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

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. — James F. Cooper

How easy it is for generous sentiments, high courtesy, and chivalrous courage to lose their influence beneath the chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior to policy. — James F. Cooper

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

Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want. — James F. Cooper

A soul,
a spark of the never-dying flame that separates man from all the other beings of earth. — James F. Cooper

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

Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman. — James F. Cooper

The listeners got some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees. — James F. Cooper

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

My mother says I'm crazy, I'm not crazy, I just have a different way of looking at things. — James Kidd

When the colony's laws, or even the King's laws, run ag'in the laws of God, they get to be onlawful, and ought not to be obeyed. — James Fenimore Cooper

Any eye at all practiced in the signs of a frontier warfare, might easily have traced all those unerring evidences of the ruthless results which attends an Indian vengeance.
Still, the sun rose on the Lenape a nation of mourners. — James Fenimore Cooper

I sometimes wish I had been educated a Catholic, in order to unite the poetry of religion with its higher principles. Are they necessarily inseparable? Is man really so much of a philosopher, that he can conceive of truth in its abstract purity, and divest life and the affections of all the aids of the imagination? — James Fenimore Cooper

No star seemed less than what science has taught us that it is. — James F. Cooper

The European who comes to America plunges into the virgin forest with wonder and delight; while the American who goes to Europe finds his greatest pleasure, at first, in hunting up the memorials of the past. Each is in quest of novelty, and is burning with the desire to gaze at objects of which he has often read. — James Fenimore Cooper

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 Fenimore Cooper

Judith:"And where, then, is your sweetheart, Deerslayer?"
Deerslayer: "She's in the forest, Judith - hanging from the boughs of the trees, in a soft rain - in the dew on the open grass - the clouds that float about in the blue heavens - the birds that sing in the woods - the sweet springs where I slake my thirst - and in all the other glorious gifts that come from God's Providence! — James Fenimore Cooper

...every period of life has its necessities, and at forty-seven it's just as well to trust a little to the head. — James Fenimore Cooper

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

Principles ... become modified in practice, by facts. — James F. Cooper

Then as to churches, they are good, I suppose, else wouldn't good men uphold' em. But they are not altogether necessary. They call 'em the temples of the Lord; but, Judith, the whole 'arth is a temple of the Lord to such as have the right mind. Neither forts nor churches make people happier of themselves. Moreover, all is contradiction in the settlements, while all is concord in the woods. Forts and churches almost always go together, and yet they're downright contradictions; churches being for peace, and forts for war. No, no
give me the strong places of the wilderness, which is the trees, and the churches, too, which are arbors raised by the hand of nature. — James Fenimore Cooper

No! You stay alive! Submit, do you hear? You're strong, you survive. You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you ... (Hawkeye / The Last of the Mohicans) 97 — James Fenimore Cooper

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. — James F. Cooper

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, breath, and walk - and therefore each has a right to his share of earth. — James Fenimore Cooper

When men struggle for the single life God has given them ... even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood. — James F. Cooper

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other. — James F. Cooper

I'm in a squad where I'd rather shoot the C.O than the enemy.- Cooper Hawkes

Knock it off. -T,C. McQueen

You know what I'm saying, Sir. I mean I never felt like shooting you. -Cooper Hawkes

Stop it, Hawkes. You're making me all misty.-- T.C. McQueen — James Morrison

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 Fenimore Cooper

It comes as a great shock ... to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance ... has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you. — James Baldwin

A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate. — James F. Cooper

It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians and, although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians is you — James Baldwin

As reason and revelation both tell us that this state of being is but a preparation for another of a still higher and more spiritual order, all the interests of life are of comparatively little importance, when put in the balance against the future. — James F. Cooper

No one embodied the spirit of the frontier more than Daniel Boone, who faced and defeated countless natural and man-made dangers to literally hand cut the trail west through the wilderness. He marched with then colonel George Washington in the French and Indian War, established one of the most important trading posts in the West, served three terms in the Virginia Assembly, and fought in the Revolution. His exploits made him world famous; he served as the model for James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales and numerous other pioneer stories. He was so well known and respected that even Lord Byron, in his epic poem Don Juan, wrote, "Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere ... " And yet he was accused of treason - betraying his country - the most foul of all crimes at the time. What really happened to bring him to that courtroom? And was the verdict reached there correct? — Bill O'Reilly

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

Battles, unlike bargains, are rarely discussed in society. — James Fenimore Cooper

My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of the Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the sun has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans. — James Fenimore Cooper

It should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed. — James Fenimore Cooper

Else would my scalp long since have been drying in a Mingo wigwam. — James Fenimore Cooper

happy hunting-grounds — James Fenimore Cooper

One, and she was the more juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue eyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow aside the green veil which descended low from her beaver. — James Fenimore Cooper

So much the better - so much the better; for I have always found that a conceited man never knows content. All things prove it. Why have we not the wings of the pigeon, the eyes of the eagle, and the legs of the moose, if it had been intended that man should be equal to all his wishes? — James Fenimore Cooper

To those who live in the narrow circle of human interests and human feelings, there ever exists, unheeded, almost unnoticed, before their very eyes, the most humbling proofs of their own comparative insignificance in the scale of creation, which, in the midst of their admitted mastery over the earth and all it contains, it would be well for them to consider, if they would obtain just views of what they are and what they were intended to be. — James Fenimore Cooper

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

One of the most melancholy consequences of this habit of deferring to other nations, and to other systems, is the fact that it causes us to undervalue the high blessings we so peculiarly enjoy; to render us ungrateful towards God, and to make us unjust to our fellow men, by throwing obstacles in their progress towards liberty. — James F. Cooper

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. — James F. Cooper

A thing which is of no moment itself may be made of importance in the way of competition. — James Fenimore Cooper

What do you think? The last party she threw for you, you
came home with an inflatable cock on your head as a tiara, totally drunk,
singing 'Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!' and carrying a huge basket full of sex toys. — Elle Aycart

We don't want him, we want you.-- Cooper Hawkes.

This isn't a dating service. We're in the middle of a war. If we stop following orders, there will be no order. It'll all fall apart.- T.C. McQueen — James Morrison

These families, you know, are our upper crust, not upper ten thousand. — James F. Cooper

The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to journey in the same path. — James Fenimore Cooper

The French dine to gratify, we to appease appetite," observed John Sanderson. "We demolish dinner, they eat it." The general misconception back home was that French food was highly seasoned, but not at all, wrote James Fenimore Cooper. The genius in French cookery was "in blending flavors and in arranging compounds in such a manner as to produce ... the lightest and most agreeable food." The charm of a French dinner, like so much in French life, was the "effect. — David McCullough

It is the fate of all things to ripen, and then to decay. — James Fenimore Cooper

We are all human, and all do wrong. — James Fenimore Cooper

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

There are evils worse than death, — James F. Cooper

Everybody says it, and what everybody says must be true. — James F. Cooper

Where are the blossoms of those summers!-fallen, one by one: so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of the spirits. — James Fenimore Cooper

I too can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or everything to rescue her I love. — James Fenimore Cooper

As one of the first editors at 'Outside' magazine in 1975, it was my contention that most American writing going back to James Fennimore Cooper and then through Twain up to Hemingway had been outdoor writing. At that time, adventure writing meant stuff like 'Saga' or 'Argosy.' 'Death Race with the Jungle Leper Army!' That kind of thing. — Tim Cahill

The sight of a coward's blood can never make a warrior tremble. — James F. Cooper

Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence than to l'arn its lessons. — James Fenimore Cooper

The sublimity connected with vastness, is familiar to every eye. — James F. Cooper

Too many!' James shouted, and slammed the door behind him. — Susan Cooper

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

Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving 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

I look upon the redmen to be quite as human as we are ourselves, Hurry. They have their gifts, and their religion, it's true; but that makes no difference in the end, when each will be judged according to his deeds and not according to his skin. — James Fenimore Cooper

And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist whose shades of contenance may resemble mine? — James Fenimore Cooper

Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young. — James Fenimore Cooper

Ah's me! if we could be what what we wish to be, instead of being only what we are, there would be a great difference in our characters and knowledge and appearance. One may be rude and coarse and ignorant, and yet happy, if he does not know it; but it is hard to see our own failings in the strongest light, just as we wish to hear the least about them. — James Fenimore Cooper