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James Fenimore Cooper 1789 - 1851 | ||||
American novelist, author of The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840), The Deerslayer (1841), and other works | ||||
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| The tendencies of democracies are, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal. 1838 - from The American Democrat | ||||
| Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions. | ||||
| If newspapers are useful in overthrowing tyrants, it is only to establish a tyranny of their own. 1838 - from The American Democrat | ||||
| 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. | ||||
| It is the proper business of government to resist the corruptions of money, and not to depend on them. 1838 - from The American Democrat | ||||
| 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. 1838 - from The American Democrat | ||||
