Quotes from James Fenimore Cooper

To those who live in the narrow circle of human interests and human feelings, there ever exists, unheeded, almost unnoticed, before their very eyes, the most humbling proofs of their own comparative insignificance in the scale of creation, which, in the midst of their admitted mastery over the earth and all it contains, it would be well for them to consider, if they would obtain just views of what they are and what they were intended to be.

Now Mr. Green was so completely a star of a confined orbit, that his ideas seldom described a tangent to their ordinary revolutions.

If any thing connected with the hardness of the human heart could surprise us, it surely would be the indifference with which men live on, engrossed by their worldly objects, amid the sublime natural phenomena that so eloquently and unceasingly speak to their imaginations, affections, and judgments.

The physical marvels of the universe produce little more reflection than the profoundest moral truths. A million of eyes shall pass over the firmament, on a cloudless night, and not a hundred minds shall be filled with a proper sense of the power of the dread Being that created all that is there--not a hundred hearts glow with the adoration that such an appeal to the senses and understanding ought naturally to produce.

When the colony's laws, or even the King's laws, run ag'in the laws of God, they get to be onlawful, and ought not to be obeyed.

Mr. Dodge, you have the high consolation of knowing that, throughout this trying occasion, you have conducted yourself in a way no other man of the party could have done.

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.

The sudden falling of the trees are the most dangerous of our accidents in the forest, for they are not to be foreseen, being impelled by no winds, nor any extraneous or visible cause, against which we can guard.

The manner in which the Americans are subdivided into sects also conflicts with any commendable desire that may exist to build glorious temples in honor of the Deity: and convenience is more consulted than taste, perhaps, in all that relates to ecclesiastical architecture. Nevertheless

Who have we here? some amateur in fights! an inquisitive, wonder- seeking non-combatant, who has volunteered to serve his king, and perhaps draw a picture, or write a book, to serve himself! Pray, sir, in what capacity did you serve in this vessel?

Tis an ancient and sacred tie that binds man to his nation; neither can it be severed without infamy.

So much the better — so much the better; for I have always found that a conceited man never knows content. All things prove it. Why have we not the wings of the pigeon, the eyes of the eagle, and the legs of the moose, if it had been intended that man should be equal to all his wishes?

But might is right, according to the fashions of the 'arth; and what the strong chooses to do, the weak must call justice. - Natty Bumppo

As your distress is occasioned by my company, said Eve, it is fortunately in my power to relieve it.

One of the misfortunes of a nation, is to hear little besides its own praises.

A great deal of undigested morality is uttered to the world, under the disguise of a pretended public virtue. In the eye of reason, the man who deliberately and voluntarily contracts civil engagements is more strictly bound to their fulfilment, than he whose whole obligations consist of an accident over which he had not the smallest control, that of birth ; though the very reverse of this is usually maintained undei the influence of popular prejudice.

No sé que quereís decir con vuestras alusiones a los artes cruentos de la guerra. A otros dejo el honor, si de honor se trata, de tan semejantes ciencias bélicas.

Así, nosotros tenemos siempre los ojos vueltos hacia el sol que surge y no hacia el que se esconde y que besa vuestros lagos de aguas dulces donde un mohícano moriría.

Están en juego nuestras vidas! Cuando los hombres luchan para conservar su propia existencia, hasta la sangre de sus semejantes carece de valor.

Qué sucede? ¿es el infierno que nos ha echado encima sus demonios?

Che diritto hanno i cristiani bianchi di vantarsi del loro sapere, mentre un indiano è in grado di leggere una lingua che sarebbe troppo oscura per il più saggio di loro?

I sometimes wish I had been educated a Catholic, in order to unite the poetry of religion with its higher principles. Are they necessarily inseparable? Is man really so much of a philosopher, that he can conceive of truth in its abstract purity, and divest life and the affections of all the aids of the imagination?

The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.

Battles, unlike bargains, are rarely discussed in society.