Quote

Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.

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
Thinking
Shall
Write
Thought
Writing
Think

More quotes by William Cobbett

Image
I defy you to agitate any fellow with a full stomach.
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
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
Happiness, or misery, is in the mind. It is the mind that lives.
William Cobbett
Image
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?
William Cobbett
Image
Women are a sisterhood. They make common cause in behalf of the sex and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast power that the law gives us over them.
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
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
But I do not remember ever having seen a newspaper in the house and, most certainly, that privation did not render us less industrious, happy, or free.
William Cobbett
Image
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.
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
All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millionswhichit iscontinuallysucking up fromtherestof the kingdom.
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
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
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
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
Praise the child, and you make love to the mother.
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
Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.
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