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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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James F. Cooper
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More quotes by James F. Cooper

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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.
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tis hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below them.
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Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.
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If the newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own.
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All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities.
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Individuality is the aim of political liberty.
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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.
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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
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The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false is one of the last attainments of the human mind.
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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.
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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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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.
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Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark?
James F. Cooper
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The listeners got some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees.
James F. Cooper
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Battles, unlike bargains, are rarely discussed in society.
James F. Cooper
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Perfection is always found in maturity, whether it be in the animal or in the intellectual world. Reflection is the mother of wisdom, and wisdom the parent of success.
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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It is seldom men think of death in the pride of their health and strength.
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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It is the fate of all things to ripen, and then to decay.
James F. Cooper