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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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DEAL is a most villainous place. It is full of filthy-looking people.Great desolationof abomination has beengoing on here.
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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?
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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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The very hirelings of the press, whose trade it is to buoy up the spirits of the people... have uttered falsehoods so long, they have played off so many tricks, that their budget seems, at last, to be quite empty.
William Cobbett
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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.
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Poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. The shame of poverty--the shame of being thought poor--it is a great and fatal weakness, though arising in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves.
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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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Learning consists of ideas, and not of the noise that is made by the mouth.
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Happiness, or misery, is in the mind. It is the mind that lives.
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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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Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.
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Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate, in adhering to an opinion once adopted.
William Cobbett
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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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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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The smallness of our desires may contribute reasonably to our wealth.
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You never know what you can do till you try.
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The ancient nobility and gentry of the kingdom... have been thrust out of all public employment... a race of merchants, and manufacturers and bankers and loan-jobbers and contractors have usurped their place.
William Cobbett
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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.
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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.
William Cobbett