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

James F. Cooper

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James F. Cooper
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More quotes by 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.
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Hebrews . This book is much superior to most of the writings attributed to St. Paul, though passages in the other books are very admirable.
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Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
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Everybody says it, and what everybody says must be true.
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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.
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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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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
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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.
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Principles . . . become modified in practice, by facts.
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.
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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.
James F. Cooper
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The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority.
James F. Cooper
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The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
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New York is essentially national in interest, position, pursuits. No one thinks of the place as belonging to a particular state, but to the United States.
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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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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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.
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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Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion.
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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