James Fenimore Cooper

Nevertheless, likin' is a tender plant, and never thrives long when watered with tears. Let the 'arth around your married happiness be moistened by the dews of kindness.

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Tis open before your eyes, returned the scout; and he who knows it is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a fool, and the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power.

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

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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 any existence of mediocrity.

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... As for me, I taught the lad the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have fought at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish, one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand - There is but a single ruler of us all, whatever maybe the color of the skin, and him I call to witness - that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth and 'Kill-deer' become as harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!

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Your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like his legs, outruns that of his fathers', but, where experience is the master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects them accordingly.

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Tis open before your eyes, returned the scout; and he who knows it is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a fool, and the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power.

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... As for me, I taught the lad the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have fought at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish, one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand - There is but a single ruler of us all, whatever maybe the color of the skin, and him I call to witness - that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth and 'Kill-deer' become as harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer!

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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 any existence of mediocrity.

Read quote

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

Read quote

Nevertheless, likin' is a tender plant, and never thrives long when watered with tears. Let the 'arth around your married happiness be moistened by the dews of kindness.

Read quote

Your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like his legs, outruns that of his fathers', but, where experience is the master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects them accordingly.

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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.

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I can never tire of speaking of the bridges of Paris. By day and by night have I paused on them to gaze at their views; the word not being too comprehensive for the crowds and groupings of objects that are visible from their arches.

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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.

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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.

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It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

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Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.

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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.

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Quotes by James Fenimore Cooper