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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

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William Cobbett
Age: 72 †
Born: 1763
Born: March 9
Died: 1835
Died: June 18
Biographer
Farmer
Journalist
Pamphleteer
Political Writer
Politician
Farnham
Surrey
Dick Retort
Peter Porcupine
Produce
Liberty
Create
Class
Taxation
Give
Tendency
Persons
Tendencies
Take
Labour
Giving
Labor

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When, from the top of any high hill, one looks round the country, and sees the multitude of regularly distributed spires, one not only ceases to wonder that order and religion are maintained, but one is astonished that any such thing as disaffection or irreligion should prevail.
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Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
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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.
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To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.
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Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.
William Cobbett
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It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.
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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.
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You never know what you can do till you try.
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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.
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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.
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The Norfolk people are quick and smart in their motions and their speaking. Very neat and trim in all their farming concerns and very skilful. Their land is good, their roads are level, and the bottom of their soil is dry, to be sure and these are great advantages but they are diligent and make the most of everything.
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The town of GUILDFORD, which (taken with its environs) I, who have seen so many, many towns, think the prettiest, and, taken all together, the most agreeable and most happy-looking, that I ever saw in my life.
William Cobbett
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Please your eye and plague your heart.
William Cobbett
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Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the tea and coffee and other slop-kettle, if, unhappily, you have been bred up in such slavery.
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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.
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Norwich is a very fine city, and the castle, which stands in the middle of it, on a hill, is truly majestic.
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WESTBURY, a nasty odious rotten-borough, a really rotten place.
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The power which money gives is that of brute force it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet.
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The smallness of our desires may contribute reasonably to our wealth.
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Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate, in adhering to an opinion once adopted.
William Cobbett