Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by James Fenimore Cooper (American Novelist)

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) was a prominent American novelist, essayist, biographer, and social critic. He made significant contributions to the development of American literature. He played a crucial role in shaping the romantic portrayal of the American West. Cooper’s renowned series of frontier adventure novels, collectively known as the ‘Leatherstocking Tales,’ featured the wilderness scout Natty Bumppo, or Hawkeye, and introduced themes such as the frontier, white/Indian conflict, and America’s westward expansion as suitable subjects for literary works. Cooper’s eldest daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper, was also an author.

Born in Burlington, New Jersey, Cooper was born to a wealthy Quaker and Federalist member of Congress. The family later relocated to Cooperstown, New York, an untamed frontier area renowned for its breathtaking natural beauty. Although Cooper initially attended Yale, he was expelled during his third year. He subsequently joined the merchant marine in 1806 and later enlisted in the navy as a midshipman in 1808. Rising to the rank of lieutenant, he resigned from the navy in 1811, married Susan (sister of Bishop De Lancey of New York,) and settled into a life as a country gentleman.

Cooper’s first novel, Precaution (1819,) did not succeed, and the quality of his subsequent 32 novels varied. However, his sea stories and tales featuring Native American Indians garnered the most acclaim. These include works such as The Spy (1821,) The Pilot (1823,) The Last of the Mohicans (1826,) The Prairie (1826,) The Red Rover (1827,) The Bravo (1831,) The Pathfinder (1840,) The Deerslayer (1841,) The Two Admirals (1842,) Wing-and-Wing (1842,) and Satanstoe (1845.)

In addition to his novels, Cooper also wrote a scholarly Naval History of the United States (1839) and Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers (1846.) He traveled to England and France and was the US consul at Lyons 1826–29. Following his consulship, he traveled through Switzerland and Italy until 1831. Cooper’s later years were marred by literary controversies, newspaper disputes, and legal battles.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by James Fenimore Cooper

A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Queens, Kings, Royalty

We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gloamings 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 Fenimore Cooper
Topics: World

Everybody says it, and what everybody says must be true.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Truth

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Public opinion, Democracy

Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Individuality

Property is desirable as the ground work of moral independence, as a means of improving the faculties, and of doing good to others, and as the agent in all that distinguishes the civilized man from the savage.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Property

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.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Principles

Aristocracy: A combination of many powerful men, for the purpose of maintaining their own particular interests. It is consequently a concentration of all the most effective parts of a community for a given end, hence its energy, efficiency and success.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Class

Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Sincerity, Candor

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
Topics: Equality

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Friendship, Adversity

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
Topics: Life, Control, Vision, World, Reason, Business, Sin, Rest

The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior to those who are not, so long as he is the repository of power, and the child inherits the wealth of the parent as a controlling law of society.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Equality

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.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Media

Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Slavery

The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Language

A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all high bred deportment, in every country, and a considerate humanity should be the aim of all beneath it.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Simplicity

Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Politics, Politicians

America owes most of its social prejudices to the exaggerated religious opinions of the different sects which were so instrumental in establishing the colonies.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Prejudice

We can perceive the difference between ourselves and our inferiors, but when it comes to a question of the difference between us and our superiors we fail to appreciate merits of which we have no preconceptions.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Merit

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
—James Fenimore Cooper
Topics: Democracy

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *