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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

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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
People
System
Napoleon
Impossible
Armies
Fall
Immense
Felt
Hardest
Truth
Blow
Ever
Army
Believe
Necessary
Fleets
Make
Military
Taxing

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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.
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Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.
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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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Give me, Lord, neither poverty nor riches.
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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.
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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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Please your eye and plague your heart.
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The smallness of our desires may contribute reasonably to our wealth.
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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.
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A full belly to the labourer was, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace.
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Learning consists of ideas, and not of the noise that is made by the mouth.
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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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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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Protestations of impartiality I shall make none. Theyare always useless and are besides perfect nonsense, when used bya news-monger.
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To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.
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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.
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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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It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is caused in the world.
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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.
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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.
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