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

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
Well
Taxation
Nothing
Debt
Country
National
Great
Taxes
Like
Produce
System
Torpor
Death
Calculated
Wells
Extended

More quotes by William Cobbett

Image
I defy you to agitate any fellow with a full stomach.
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
To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.
William Cobbett
Image
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
Image
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.
William Cobbett
Image
A full belly to the labourer was, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace.
William Cobbett
Image
He who writes badly thinks badly
William Cobbett
Image
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.
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
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
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
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 not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.
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
Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
William Cobbett
Image
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
Image
WESTBURY, a nasty odious rotten-borough, a really rotten place.
William Cobbett
Image
DEAL is a most villainous place. It is full of filthy-looking people.Great desolationof abomination has beengoing on here.
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
Image
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