Paul Fenimore Cooper Quotes

He who lacks imagination lives but half a life. He has his experiences, he has his facts, he has his learning. But do any of these really live unless touched by the magic of the imagination? ~ Paul Fenimore Cooper

Battles, unlike bargains, are rarely discussed in society. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Washington, who, after uselessly admonishing the European general of the danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the remnants of the British army, on this occasion, by his decision and courage. The reputation earned by Washington in this battle was the principal cause of his being selected to command the American armies at a later day. It is a circumstance worthy of observation, that while all America rang with his well-merited reputation, his name does not occur in any European account of the battle; at least the author has searched for it without success. In this manner does the mother country absorb even the fame, under that system of rule. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

I too can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or everything to rescue her I love. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

It is the peculiar nature of the forest, that life and death may ever be found within its bounds, in immediate presence of each other; both with ceaseless, noiseless advances, aiming at the mastery; and if the influences of the first be most general, those of the last are the most striking. ~ Susan Fenimore Cooper

It should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Nothing but vast wisdom and onlimited power should dare sweep men off in multitudes,' he added; 'for it is only the one that can know the necessity of the judgement; and what is there short of the other, that can replace the creatures of the Lord? ~ James Fenimore Cooper

A thing which is of no moment itself may be made of importance in the way of competition. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Men are seldom struck by incongruities in their appearance any more than their own conduct. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

We are all human, and all do wrong. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Content is a great fortifier of good looks. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Has dropped into the river, said Hurry, after looking carefully along ~ James Fenimore Cooper

A man without conscience is but a poor creature ... ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The air, the water, and the ground are free gifts to man, and no one has the power to portion them out in parcels. Man must drink, breath, and walk - and therefore each has a right to his share of earth. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

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

If mankind conversed only of the things they understood, half the words might be struck out of the dictionaries. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

If a man believed all that other people choose to say in their own favor, he might get an oversized opinion of them, and an undersized opinion of himself. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

No! You stay alive! Submit, do you hear? You're strong, you survive. You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you ... (Hawkeye / The Last of the Mohicans) 97 ~ James Fenimore Cooper

...every period of life has its necessities, and at forty-seven it's just as well to trust a little to the head. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Say to these kind and gentle females, that a heart-broken and failing man returns them his thanks. Tell them, that the Being we all worship, under different names, will be mindful of their charity; and that the time shall not be distant when we may assemble around His throne without distinction of sex, or rank, or color. The ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Knowledge is the parent of knowledge. He who possesses most of the information of his age will not quietly submit to neglect its current acquisitions, but will go on improving as long as means and opportunities offer; while he who finds himself ignorant of most things, is only too apt to shrink from a labour which becomes Herculean. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The deer that goes too often to the lick meets the hunter at last! ~ James Fenimore Cooper

History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Fenimore Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now. ~ Mark Twain

We live in a world of endless transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Tis open before your eyes," returned the scout; "and he who knows it is not a niggard of its use. I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun, through the windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a fool, and the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness, or be it in power. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Even the robin and the martin come back, year after year, to their old nests; shall a woman be less true hearted than a bird? ~ James Fenimore Cooper

... As for me, I taught the lad the real character of a rifle; and well has he paid me for it. I have fought at his side in many a bloody scrimmage; and so long as I could hear the crack of his piece in one ear, and that of the Sagamore in the other, I knew no enemy was on my back. Winters and summers, nights and days, have we roved the wilderness in company, eating of the same dish, one sleeping while the other watched; and afore it shall be said that Uncas was taken to the torment, and I at hand - There is but a single ruler of us all, whatever maybe the color of the skin, and him I call to witness - that before the Mohican boy shall perish for the want of a friend, good faith shall depart the 'arth and 'Kill-deer' become as harmless as the tooting we'pon of the singer! ~ James Fenimore Cooper

I care not for your envy, or your hypocrisy, or even for your human nature. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

But even the falsest of men pay so much homage to truth as to seem its votaries. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

I have attended church-service in the garrisons, and tried hard ... to join in the prayers ... but never could raise within me the solemn feelings and true affection that I feel when alone with God in the forest. There I seem to stand face to face with my Master; all around me is fresh and beautiful, as it came from His hand; and there is no nicety or doctrine to chill the feelings. No no; the woods are the true temple after all, for there the thoughts are free to mount higher even than the clouds. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Come, friend; you are welcome, though your notions are a little blinded with reading too many books. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, 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.
Religion's first lesson is humility; its fruit, charity. In the great and sublime ends of Providence, little things are lost, and least of all is he imbued with a right spirit who believes that insignificant observances, subtleties of doctrine, and minor distinctions, enter into the great essentials of the Christian character. The wisest thing for him who is disposed to cavil at the immaterial habits of his neighbor, to split straws on doctrine, to fancy trifles of importance, and to place the man before principles, would be to distrust himself. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Mendacity and vulgarity can only permanently affect those who resort to their use. (Ch 17) ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The European who comes to America plunges into the virgin forest with wonder and delight; while the American who goes to Europe finds his greatest pleasure, at first, in hunting up the memorials of the past. Each is in quest of novelty, and is burning with the desire to gaze at objects of which he has often read. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

The arches of the woods, even at high noon, cast their sombre shadows on the spot, which the brilliant rays of the sun that struggled through the leaves contributed to mellow, and if such an expression can be used, to illuminate. It was probably from a similar scene that the mind of man first got its idea of the effects of gothic tracery and churchly hues, this temple of nature producing some such effect, so far as light and shadow were concerned, as the well-known offspring of human invention. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

I have passed days thinking of these matters, out in the silent woods, and I have come to the opinion, boy, that as Providence rules all things, no gift is bestowed without some wise and reasonable end. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Mankind twist and turn the rules of the Lord, to suit their own wickedness, when their devilish cunning has had too much time to trifle with His command. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Your young white, who gathers his learning from books and can measure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, like his legs, outruns that of his fathers', but, where experience is the master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects them accordingly. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Then as to churches, they are good, I suppose, else wouldn't good men uphold' em. But they are not altogether necessary. They call 'em the temples of the Lord; but, Judith, the whole 'arth is a temple of the Lord to such as have the right mind. Neither forts nor churches make people happier of themselves. Moreover, all is contradiction in the settlements, while all is concord in the woods. Forts and churches almost always go together, and yet they're downright contradictions; churches being for peace, and forts for war. No, no
give me the strong places of the wilderness, which is the trees, and the churches, too, which are arbors raised by the hand of nature. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Is it justice to make evil, and then punish for it? ~ James Fenimore Cooper