All James F. Cooper Quotes
The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.
James F. Cooper
59% of people like this quote
It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil.
James F. Cooper
59% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
57% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
57% of people like this quote
They who have reasoned ignorantly, or who have aimed at effecting their personal ends by flattering the popular feeling, have boldly affirmed that 'one man is as good as another;' a maxim that is true in neither nature, revealed morals, nor political theory.
James F. Cooper
56% of people like this quote
Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.
James F. Cooper
54% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
54% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
51% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
51% of people like this quote
Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions.
James F. Cooper
51% of people like this quote
It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
James F. Cooper
51% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
51% of people like this quote
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 F. Cooper
50% of people like this quote
The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
James F. Cooper
49% of people like this quote
Related authors