Top 74 Fenimore Cooper Quotes
#1. I've been writing about James Fenimore Cooper. He was not a writer. Here was a man who was 30 years old and had never put anything more than his signature on paper.
Leslie Fiedler
#2. There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Fenimore Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now.
Mark Twain
#4. When men speak, they should say that which does not go in at one side of the head and out at the other. Their words shouldn't be feathers, so light that a wind which does not ruffle the water can blow them away.
James Fenimore Cooper
#5. ...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
#6. All sacrifices of common sense, and all recourse to plausible political combinations, whether of individuals or of men, are uniformly made at the expense of the majority.
James Fenimore Cooper
#7. Come, friend; you are welcome, though your notions are a little blinded with reading too many books.
James Fenimore Cooper
#8. All places that the eye of heaven visits/ Are to a wise man ports and happy havens:/ Think not the king did banish thee:/ But thou the king.
Richard II
James Fenimore Cooper
#9. 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
#12. 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
#13. The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My temple, Lord! that arch of thine; My censer's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers. MOORE
James Fenimore Cooper
#15. Chingachgook grasped the hand that, in the warmth of feeling, the scout had stretched across the fresh earth, and in that attitude of friendship these intrepid woodsmen bowed their heads together, while scalding tears fell to their feet, watering the grave of Uncas like drops of falling rain.
James Fenimore Cooper
#16. 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 Fenimore Cooper
#20. 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
#21. I too can play the madman, the fool, the hero; in short, any or everything to rescue her I love.
James Fenimore Cooper
#22. 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
#23. Paris enjoys a high reputation for the style of its public edifices, and, while there is a very great deal to condemn, compared with other capitals, I think it is entitled to a distinguished place in this particular.
James Fenimore Cooper
#24. 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
#27. Nevertheless, likin' is a tender plant, and never thrives long when watered with tears. Let the 'arth around your married happiness be moistened by the dews of kindness.
James Fenimore Cooper
#28. Any eye at all practiced in the signs of a frontier warfare, might easily have traced all those unerring evidences of the ruthless results which attends an Indian vengeance.
Still, the sun rose on the Lenape a nation of mourners.
James Fenimore Cooper
#29. Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence than to l'arn its lessons.
James Fenimore Cooper
#30. The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.
James Fenimore Cooper
#31. Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that matter, I've known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got to be of the least value.
James Fenimore Cooper
#32. You are young, and rich, and have friends, and at such an age I know it is hard to die!
James Fenimore Cooper
#34. A thing which is of no moment itself may be made of importance in the way of competition.
James Fenimore Cooper
#35. So much the better - so much the better; for I have always found that a conceited man never knows content. All things prove it. Why have we not the wings of the pigeon, the eyes of the eagle, and the legs of the moose, if it had been intended that man should be equal to all his wishes?
James Fenimore Cooper
#36. Where are the blossoms of those summers!-fallen, one by one: so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of the spirits.
James Fenimore Cooper
#37. Of the infinite variety of fruits which spring from the bosom of the earth, the trees of the wood are the greatest in dignity.
Susan Fenimore Cooper
#38. One, and she was the more juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue eyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow aside the green veil which descended low from her beaver.
James Fenimore Cooper
#39. The manner in which the Americans are subdivided into sects also conflicts with any commendable desire that may exist to build glorious temples in honor of the Deity: and convenience is more consulted than taste, perhaps, in all that relates to ecclesiastical architecture. Nevertheless,
James Fenimore Cooper
#40. 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 Fenimore Cooper
#41. We live in a world of endless transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true.
James Fenimore Cooper
#42. Then he was wrong, Hurry; very wrong. A man can enjoy plunder peaceably nowhere.
James Fenimore Cooper
#44. And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist whose shades of contenance may resemble mine?
James Fenimore Cooper
#45. God planted the seeds of all the trees," continued Hetty, after a moment's pause, "and you see to what a height and shade they have grown! So it is with the Bible. You may read a verse this year, and forget it, and it will come back to you a year hence, when you least expect to remember it.
James Fenimore Cooper
#46. When the colony's laws, or even the King's laws, run ag'in the laws of God, they get to be onlawful, and ought not to be obeyed.
James Fenimore Cooper
#48. My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of the Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the sun has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans.
James Fenimore Cooper
#50. It's wisest always to be so clad that our friends need not ask us for our names.
James Fenimore Cooper
#52. All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.
James Fenimore Cooper
#53. It is not a very difficult task to make what is commonly called an amusing book of travels. Any one who will tell, with a reasonable degree of graphic effect, what he has seen, will not fail to carry the reader with him; for the interest we all feel in personal adventure is, of itself, success.
James Fenimore Cooper
#54. I can never tire of speaking of the bridges of Paris. By day and by night have I paused on them to gaze at their views; the word not being too comprehensive for the crowds and groupings of objects that are visible from their arches.
James Fenimore Cooper
#55. ...the Evil Spirit delights more to dwell in an artful body, than in one that has no cunning to work upon.
James Fenimore Cooper
#58. 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
#59. What a noble gift to man are the Forests! What a debt of gratitude and admiration we owe to their beauty and their utility! How pleasantly the shadows of the wood fall upon our heads when we turn from the glitter and turmoil of the world of man!
Susan Fenimore Cooper
#60. It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience!
James Fenimore Cooper
#61. Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the seasons is unbroken.
James Fenimore Cooper
#62. The gifts of our colors may be different, but God has so placed us as to journey in the same path.
James Fenimore Cooper
#63. ...that dog is more to be trusted than many a Christian man; for he never forgets a friend, and loves the hand that gives him bread.
James Fenimore Cooper
#64. 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
#65. History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.
James Fenimore Cooper
#66. 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
#67. It should be remembered that men always prize that most which is least enjoyed.
James Fenimore Cooper
#68. 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
#69. An interesting fiction ... however paradoxical the assertion may appear ... addresses our love of truth- not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and principals, which is a primitive law of the human mind.
James Fenimore Cooper
#70. The woods are but the ears of the Almighty, the air is his breath, and the light of the sun is little more than a glance of his eye.
James Fenimore Cooper
#71. Tis a strange calling!' muttered Hawkeye, with an inward laugh, 'to go through life, like a catbird, mocking all the ups and downs that may happen to come out of other men's throats.
James Fenimore Cooper
#72. The result of this conversation was a sudden determination to produce a work which, if it had no other merit, might present truer pictures of the ocean and ships than any that are to be found in the Pirate.
James Fenimore Cooper
#73. I look upon the redmen to be quite as human as we are ourselves, Hurry. They have their gifts, and their religion, it's true; but that makes no difference in the end, when each will be judged according to his deeds and not according to his skin.
James Fenimore Cooper
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