The Deerslayer - James Fenimore Cooper

Likin' is a tender plant, and never thrives long when watered with tears.

It's a poor counsellor that won't take as well as give.

Men of different races and colors, and having different gifts and traditions, but, in the main, with the same nature.
Both have souls.

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.

Fright makes the wise silly, and the strong weak.

Why, Deerslayer, I've got to believe that a man meets with inimies easier than he meets with fri'nds.
It's skearful to think for how many causes one gets to be your inimy, and for how few your fri'nd.
Some take up the hatchet because you don't think just as they think; other some because you run ahead of 'em in the same idees.

Ay, it comes easy for the young and handsome, who hear so much of them feelin's, to suppose that they lie at the bottom of most proceedin's.

Give me a woman for ra'al eloquence, if they'll only make up their minds to speak what they feel.