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

James F. Cooper

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More quotes by James F. Cooper

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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
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Battles, unlike bargains, are rarely discussed in society.
James F. Cooper
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God has given the salt lick to the deer and He has given to man, red-skin and white, the delicious spring at which to slake his thirst.
James F. Cooper
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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
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We are all human, and all do wrong.
James F. Cooper
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As reason and revelation both tell us that this state of being is but a preparation for another of a still higher and more spiritual order, all the interests of life are of comparatively little importance, when put in the balance against the future.
James F. Cooper
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I've heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may so deform his works in the settlements, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests.
James F. Cooper
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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
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We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true though happily for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned, are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating, if not excusing its crimes.
James F. Cooper
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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore.
James F. Cooper
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Death is appalling to those of the most iron nerves, when it comes quietly and in the stillness and solitude of night.
James F. Cooper
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No one, who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American commercial town, would recognise, in the repose which now reigns in the ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked amongst the most important ports along the whole line of our extended coast.
James F. Cooper
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It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.
James F. Cooper
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Superstition is a quality that seems indigenous to the ocean.
James F. Cooper
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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
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Where are your combing seas, your blue water, your rollers, your breakers, your whales, or your waterspouts, and your endless motion, in this bit of a forest, child?
James F. Cooper
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Near the centre of that State of New York lies an extensive district of country, whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys.
James F. Cooper
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Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies.
James F. Cooper
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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
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The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority.
James F. Cooper