Where experience is the master, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respects them accordingly.
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The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.
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The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings 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.
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The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
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.
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The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
"Why should Tamenund stay? The pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red men has not yet come again. My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans."
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The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
"Should we distrust the man because his manners are not our manners, and that his skin is dark?"
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The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper