James F. Cooper
James F. Cooper
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth15 September 1789
CountryUnited States of America
variables mutation language
Many words are in a state of mutation, the pronunciation being unsettled even in the best society, a result that must often arise where language is as variable and undetermined as the English.
taught-us justice sublime
Christ , in the parable of the vine dressers, has taught us a sublime lesson of justice, by showing that to the things which are not our own, we can have no just claim.
fancy woe apathy
Apathy is the great requisite for the station; for woe betide the wretch who fancies any modicum of zeal.
principles visionaries way
The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue, and, in this way, is scarcely less injurious to the public. The first deals in poetry, the last in cant. He is as much a visionary on one side, as the extreme theoretical democrat is a visionary on the other.
country lying rights
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.
truth scandal being-true
Everybody says it, and what everybody says must be true.
agency evil principles
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.
new-york thinking united-states
New York is essentially national in interest, position, pursuits. No one thinks of the place as belonging to a particular state, but to the United States.
government enemy society
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.
animal hunting squirrels
The flesh is sweeter, where the creature has some chance for its life; for that reason, I always use a single ball, even if it be at a bird or a squirrel; besides, it saves lead, for, when a body knows how to shoot, one piece of lead is enough for all, except hard-lived animals.
character greatness individuality
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality.
blessing men ungrateful
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.
struggle men single-life
When men struggle for the single life God has given them ... even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood.
spiritual order preparation
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.