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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Giving
Labor
Produce
Liberty
Create
Class
Taxation
Give
Tendency
Persons
Tendencies
Take
Labour

More quotes by William Cobbett

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Please your eye and plague your heart.
William Cobbett
Image
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
Image
Protestations of impartiality I shall make none. Theyare always useless and are besides perfect nonsense, when used bya news-monger.
William Cobbett
Image
I set out as a sort of self-dependent politician. My opinions were my own. I dashed at all prejudices. I scorned to follow anybodyin matter of opinion.... All were, therefore, offended at my presumption, as they deemed it.
William Cobbett
Image
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
Image
You never know what you can do till you try.
William Cobbett
Image
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
Image
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.
William Cobbett
Image
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.
William Cobbett
Image
Men fail much oftener from want of perseverance than from want of talent.
William Cobbett
Image
Learning consists of ideas, and not of the noise that is made by the mouth.
William Cobbett
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Norwich is a very fine city, and the castle, which stands in the middle of it, on a hill, is truly majestic.
William Cobbett
Image
Give me, Lord, neither poverty nor riches.
William Cobbett
Image
However roguish a man may be, he always loves to deal with an honest man.
William Cobbett
Image
Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to [money management] for. ... want of attention to pecuniary matters ... has impeded the progress of science and of genius itself.
William Cobbett
Image
To suppose such a thing possible as a society, in which men, who are able and willing to work, cannot support their families, and ought, with a great part of the women, to be compelled to lead a life of celibacy, for fear of having children to be starved to suppose such a thing possible is monstrous.
William Cobbett