James F. Cooper Quotes

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.

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.

It is the fate of all things to ripen, and then to decay.

If the newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore.

Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young.

Liberty is not a matter of words, but a positive and important condition of society. Its greatest safeguard after placing its foundations on a popular base, is in the checks and balances imposed on the public servants.

The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false is one of the last attainments of the human mind.

Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies.

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.

Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to 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.

Contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience!

The sight of a coward's blood can never make a warrior tremble.

Principles . . . become modified in practice, by facts.

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannogt congeal in winter.

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.

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 and breathe and walk and therefore each man has a right to his share of each.

The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority.

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

The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference.

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

The press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.

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.