James F. Cooper
James F. Cooper
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth15 September 1789
CountryUnited States of America
character mean rights
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.
country effort majority
The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority.
freedom men democracies-have
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.
mean government political
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.
pride men thinking
It is seldom men think of death in the pride of their health and strength.
real democracy levels
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.
freedom democracy principles
The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.
freedom abuse matter
The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.
business visionaries world
The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.
motivational friendship spring
Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannogt congeal in winter.
important liberty balance
Liberty is not a matter of words, but a positive and important condition of society. Its greatest safeguard after placing its foundations in a popular base, is in the checks and balances imposed on the public servants.
men liberty influence
Contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed.
christian suffering ease
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.
mean men independence
Property is desirable as the ground work of moral independence, as a means of improving the faculties, and of doing good to others, and as the agent in all that distinguishes the civilized man from the savage.