The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms. James F. Cooper More Quotes by James F. Cooper More Quotes From James F. Cooper Advice is not a gift, but a debt that the old owe to the young. James F. Cooper debt young advice It's wisest always to be so clad that our friends need not ask us for our names. James F. Cooper asks names needs If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves. James F. Cooper inseparable rights civilization We are all human, and all do wrong. James F. Cooper humans I do not pretend that all that white men do is properly Christianized. James F. Cooper white-man white men The sight of a coward's blood can never make a warrior tremble. James F. Cooper warrior sight blood The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority. Unrestrained political authority, though it be confided to masses, cannot be trusted without positive limitations, men in bodies being but an aggregation of the passions, weaknesses and interests of men as individuals. James F. Cooper passion power men 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. James F. Cooper gentleman inspirational men They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have boldly affirmed that 'one man is as good as another'; a maxim that is true in neither nature, revealed morals, nor political theory. James F. Cooper political feelings men There is a destiny in war, to which a brave man knows how to submit with the same courage that he faces his foes. James F. Cooper destiny men war At no period of the naval history of the world, is it probable that Marines were more important than during the War of the Revolution. James F. Cooper marine important war In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, 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. James F. Cooper christian lying school When men struggle for the single life God has given them ... even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood. James F. Cooper single-life struggle men 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 F. Cooper preparation military art All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. James F. Cooper individuality greatness character 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. James F. Cooper rights character mean The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior of those who are not, so long he is the repository of power. James F. Cooper government office long The Americans... are almost ignorant of the art of music, one of the most elevating, innocent and refining of human tastes, whose influence on the habits and morals of a people is of the most beneficial tendency. James F. Cooper ignorant people art One of the most melancholy consequences of this habit of deferring to other nations, and to other systems, is the fact that it causes us to undervalue the high blessings we so peculiarly enjoy; to render us ungrateful towards God, and to make us unjust to our fellow men, by throwing obstacles in their progress towards liberty. James F. Cooper ungrateful blessing men The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal. James F. Cooper majority democracy freedom
