James Fenimore Cooper Quotes

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 Fenimore Cooper
These families you know are our upper crust not upper ten thousand.
James Fenimore Cooper
Principles become modified in practise by facts.
James Fenimore Cooper
Principles become modified in practise by facts.
James Fenimore Cooper
It's wisest always to be so clad that our friends need not ask us for our names.
James Fenimore Cooper
tis hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below them.
James Fenimore Cooper
...it should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed.
James Fenimore Cooper
The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste
James Fenimore Cooper
In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, 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.Religion's first lesson is humility; its fruit, charity. In the great and sublime ends of Providence, little things are lost, and least of all is he imbued with a right spirit who believes that insignificant observances, subtleties of doctrine, and minor distinctions, enter into the great essentials of the Christian character. The wisest thing for him who is disposed to cavil at the immaterial habits of his neighbor, to split straws on doctrine, to fancy trifles of importance, and to place the man before principles, would be to distrust himself.
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
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
Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence than to l’arn its lessons.
James Fenimore Cooper
Is it justice to make evil, and then punish for it?
James Fenimore Cooper
You are young, and rich, and have friends, and at such an age I know it is hard to die!
James Fenimore Cooper
Every trail has its end, and every calamity brings its lesson!
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.
James Fenimore Cooper
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.
James Fenimore Cooper
History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.
James Fenimore Cooper
History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.
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 any existence of mediocrity.
James Fenimore Cooper
... 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!
James Fenimore Cooper
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.
James Fenimore Cooper