William Cobbett Quotes

Quotes about:

• You never know what you can do till you try.

  William Cobbett

  Trying, Knows, Can Do

  197 Copy quote

• It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is caused in the world.

  William Cobbett

  Patience, Time, Life And Love

  William Cobbett (1850). “Cottage Economy: Containing Information Relative to the Brewing of Beer, Making of Bread, Keeping of Cows, Pigs, Bees, Ewes, Goats, Poultry, and Rabbits, and Relative to Other Matters Deemed Useful in the Conducting of the Affairs of a Labourer's Family : to which are Added, Instructions Relative to the Selecting, the Cutting and the Bleaching of the Plants of English Grass and Grain, for the Purpose of Making Hats and Bonnets : and Also Instructions for Erecting and Using Ice-houses, After the Virginian Manner”, p.11

  171 Copy quote

• Good government is known from bad government by this infallible test: that under the former the labouring people are well fed and well clothed, and under the latter, they are badly fed and badly clothed.

  William Cobbett

  Government, People, Tests

  William Cobbett (1933). “The Progress of a Plough-boy to a Seat in Parliament: As Exemplified in the History of the Life of William Cobbett, Member for Oldham”

  17 Copy quote

• The truth is that the fall of Napoleon is the hardest blow that our taxing system ever felt. It is now impossible to make people believe that immense fleets and armies are necessary.

  William Cobbett

  Military, Believe, Fall

  95 Copy quote

• The tendency of taxation is, to create a class of persons, who do not labour: to take from those who do labour the produce of that labour, and to give it to those who do not labour.

  William Cobbett

  Class, Giving, Liberty

  "Paper Against Gold and Glory Against Prosperity. Or, an Account of the Rise, Progress, Extent and Present State of the Funds and of the Papermoney of Great-Britain Etc".

  7 Copy quote

• You may twist the word freedom as long as you please, but at last it comes to quiet enjoyment of your own property, or it comes to nothing. Why do men want any of those things that are called political rights and privileges? Why do they, for instance, want to vote at elections for members of parliament? Oh! Because they shall then have an influence over the conduct of those members. And of what use is that? Oh! Then they will prevent the members from doing wrong.

  William Cobbett

  Men, Rights, Long

  William Cobbett (2012). “A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland”, p.231, TAN Books

  72 Copy quote

• Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.

  William Cobbett

  Writing, Thinking

  William Cobbett (1847). “A grammar of the English language, etc”, p.192

  61 Copy quote

• I view tea drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an en-genderer of effeminancy and laziness, a debaucher of youth and maker of misery for old age. Thus he makes that miserable progress towards that death which he finds ten or fifteen years sooner than he would have found it if he had made his wife brew beer instead of making tea.

  William Cobbett

  Drinking, Beer, Views

  "Cottage Economy". Book by William Cobbett, 1821.

  41 Copy quote

• Freedom is not an empty sound; it is not an abstract idea; it is not a thing that nobody can feel. It means, - and it means nothing else, - the full and quiet enjoyment of your own property. If you have not this, if this be not well secured to you, you may call yourself what you will, but you are a slave.

  William Cobbett

  Wisdom, Mean, Ideas

  William Cobbett (2012). “A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland”, p.231, TAN Books

  50 Copy quote

• Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of talent.

  William Cobbett

  Perseverance, Men, Want

  William Cobbett (1829). “Advice to Young Men, and, incidentally, to Young Women, in the middle and higher ranks of life. In a series of letters, etc”, p.36

  51 Copy quote

• To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.

  William Cobbett

  Wisdom, Independent, Independence

  William Cobbett (1829). “Advice to Young Men, and, incidentally, to Young Women, in the middle and higher ranks of life. In a series of letters, etc”, p.47

  8 Copy quote

• Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.

  William Cobbett

  War, Men, May

  William Cobbett (1820). “Cobbett's Political Register”, p.497

  42 Copy quote

• The Christian religion, then, is not an affair of preaching, or prating, or ranting, but of taking care of the bodies as well as the souls of people; not an affair of belief and of faith and of professions, but an affair of doing good, and especially to those who are in want; not an affair of fire and brimstone, but an affair of bacon and bread, beer and a bed.

  William Cobbett

  Christian, Beer, Fire

  26 Copy quote

• Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.

  William Cobbett

  Death, Country, Taxation

  William Cobbett's letter, February 10, 1804.

  39 Copy quote

• I defy you to agitate any fellow with a full stomach.

  William Cobbett

  Agitation, Stomach, Fellows

  31 Copy quote

• Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of "speculation"; but which ought to be called Gambling.

  William Cobbett

  Gambling, Names, Evil

  "Advice to Young Men, and (Incidentally) to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life (Letter 2)". Book by William Cobbett, 1829.

  47 Copy quote

• Dancing is at once rational & healthful: it gives animal spirits; it is the natural amusement of young people, & such it has been from the days of Moses.

  William Cobbett

  Dance, Animal, People

  William Cobbett (2006). “Advice to Young Men”, p.33, Cosimo, Inc.

  10 Copy quote

• It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense.

  William Cobbett

  Education, Real, Boys

  William Cobbett (1817). “Cobbett's Weekly Political Register”

  36 Copy quote

• All my plans in private life; all my pursuits; all my designs, wishes, and thoughts, have this one great object in view: the overthrow of the ruffian Boroughmongers. If I write grammars; if I write on agriculture; if I sow, plant, or deal in seeds; whatever I do has first in view the destruction of those infamous tyrants.

  William Cobbett

  Writing, Views, Tyrants

  Political Register, August 14, 1819.

  39 Copy quote

• The power which money gives is that of brute force; it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet.

  William Cobbett

  Giving, Bayonets, Force

  William Cobbett (1829). “Advice to young men, and, incidentally, to young women, in the middle and higher ranks of life, in a series of letters”, p.51

  37 Copy quote

• But what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, "the metropolis of the empire"?

  William Cobbett

  Silly, Fate, Monsters

  William Cobbett (2011). “Rural Rides (Two Volumes in One)”, p.43, Cosimo, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• A couple of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. They are great softeners of temper and promoters of domestic harmony.

  William Cobbett

  Religious, Couple, Food

  William Cobbett (2009). “Cottage Economy”, p.84, Applewood Books

  7 Copy quote

• If the people of Sheffield could only receive a tenth part of what their knives sell for by retail in America, Sheffield might pave its streets with silver.

  William Cobbett

  Knives, America, People

  William Cobbett, James Paul Cobbett (1853). “Rural Rides: In the Counties of Surrey ... [etc.] in the Years 1821, 1822, 1823, 1825, 1826, 1829, 1830 and 1832, with Economical and Political Observations Relative to Matters Applicable To, and Illustrated By, the State of Those Counties Respectively”, p.557

  52 Copy quote

• From a very early age I had imbibed the opinion that it was every man's duty to do all that lay in his power to leave his country as good as he had found it.

  William Cobbett

  Country, Men, Age

  'Political Register' 22 December 1832

  11 Copy quote

• Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
  It is by attempting to reach the top in a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world.

  William Cobbett

  Patience, Men, Quality

  25 Copy quote

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