Nevertheless, likin' is a tender plant, and never thrives long when watered with tears. Let the 'art around your married happiness be moistened by the dews of kindness.

— James Fenimore Cooper

Nothing is easier to us who pass our time in the great school of Providence than to l’ARN its lessons.

— 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

Principles become modified in practice by facts.

— James Fenimore Cooper

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

These families you know are our upper crust not upper ten thousand.

— James Fenimore Cooper

this hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below them.

— James Fenimore Cooper

This 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

We can all 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 proper conceptions.

— James Fenimore Cooper

You are young, and rich, and have friends, and at such an age I know it is hard to die!

— James Fenimore Cooper