Quotes by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

“Could the laws be founded but on common justice they would not need of any amendments.””

“To aim at a greater share of political felicity, to make the world believe we were slaves, to make us exchange the silken cords of our ancient government for the rattling chains of our timocracy, is perhaps the most monstrous instance of perfidy, ingratitude, and successful hypocrisy that ever was exhibited in the world before.””

“What this world was made for, I am sure I cannot tell. There is rather a degree of impiety in wishing to investigate so sublime a scheme. But in our obscure gropings and strange wanderings, it really appears as if it was even so. For they are the greatest majority, and the greatest number surely should have the greater right in a system where everything depends on force. This is infallibly the case except where the wisdom of the few has set itself in opposition and become superior.””

“There the very delirium of tyranny tramples on the best gifts of nature and sports with the fate, the happiness, the lives of millions; there the extreme fertility of the ground always indicates the extreme misery of the inhabitants!””

“Even under those mild climates which seem to breathe peace and happiness, the poison of slavery, the fury of despotism, and the rage of superstition are all combined against man!””

“she created man and placed him either in the woods or plains and provided him with passions which must forever oppose his happiness; everything is submitted to the power of the strongest; men, like the elements, are always at war; the weakest yield to the most potent; force, subtlety, and malice always triumph over unguarded honesty and simplicity.””

“we never speak of a hero of mathematics, a hero of knowledge or humanity, no, this illustrious appellation is reserved for the most successful butchers of the world.””

“Oh, Nature, where art thou? Are not these blacks thy children as well as we?””

“While all is joy, festivity, and happiness in Charles Town, would you imagine that scenes of misery overspread in the country? Their ears by habit are become deaf, their hearts are hardened; they neither see, hear, nor feel for the woes of their poor slaves, from whose painful labours all their wealth proceeds. Here the horrors of slavery, the hardship of incessant toils, are unseen; and no one thinks with compassion of those showers of sweat and of tears which from the bodies of Africans daily drop and moisten the ground they till.””

“Shining talents and university knowledge would be entirely useless here, nay, would be dangerous; it would pervert their plain judgement, it would lead them out of that useful path which is so well adapted to their situation; it would make them more adventurous, more presumptuous, much less cautious, and therefore less successful.””

“This singular establishment has been effected by means of that native industry and perseverance common to all men when they are protected by a government which demands but little for its protection, when they are permitted to enjoy a system of rational laws founded on perfect freedom.””

“The Irish do not prosper so well; they love to drink and to quarrel; they are litigious and soon take to the gun, which is the ruin of everything;””

“Hunting is but a licentious idle life, and if it does not always pervert good dispositions, yet, when it is united with bad luck, it leads to want: want stimulates that propensity to rapacity and injustice, too natural to needy men, which is the fatal gradation.””

“Persecution, religious pride, the love of contradiction, are the food of what the world commonly calls religion. These motives have ceased here; zeal in Europe is confined; here it evaporates in the great distance it has to travel; there it is a grain of powder inclosed; here it burns away in the open air and consumes without effect.””