James Cooper Quotes (10 Quotes)

On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.

Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark

The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority

In America, it is indispensable that every well-wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of tyranny can only proceed from the public. The public, then, is to be watched, in this country, as, in other countries kings and aristocrats are to be watched.

The principal advantage of a democracy, is a general elevation in the character of the people

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.

The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue, and, in this way, is scarcely less injurious to the public. The first deals in poetry, the last in cant. He is as much a visionary on one side, as the extreme theoretical democrat is a visionary on the other.

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.

Although the political liberty of this country is greater than that of nearly every other civilized nation, its personal liberty is said to be less.

If the newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own