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Learning consists of ideas, and not of the noise that is made by the mouth.

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
Noise
Mouth
Mouths
Learning
Ideas
Made
Consists

More quotes by William Cobbett

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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
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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
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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
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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.
William Cobbett
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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.
William Cobbett
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I was a countryman and a father before I was a writer on political subjects... Born and bred up in the sweet air myself, I was resolved that my children should be bred up in it too.
William Cobbett
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The smallness of our desires may contribute reasonably to our wealth.
William Cobbett
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However roguish a man may be, he always loves to deal with an honest man.
William Cobbett
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To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.
William Cobbett
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Give me, Lord, neither poverty nor riches.
William Cobbett
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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.
William Cobbett
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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.
William Cobbett
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I defy you to agitate any fellow with a full stomach.
William Cobbett
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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
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Praise the child, and you make love to the mother.
William Cobbett
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A couple of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. They are great softeners of temper and promoters of domestic harmony.
William Cobbett
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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.
William Cobbett
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Protestations of impartiality I shall make none. Theyare always useless and are besides perfect nonsense, when used bya news-monger.
William Cobbett
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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.
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.
William Cobbett