William Cobbett Quotes
March 9, 1763 – June 18, 1835
Read William Cobbett biography
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Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate, in adhering to an opinion once adopted.
William Cobbett, Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine, p. 23, London, The Nonesuch Press (1927). 
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More William Cobbett Quotes
If the people of Sheffield could only receive a tenth part of what their knives sell for by retail in America, Sheffield might pave its streets with silver.
William Cobbett— William Cobbett, Rural Rides, (1830).
Protestations of impartiality I shall make none. Theyare always useless and are besides perfect nonsense, when used bya news-monger.
William Cobbett— 1797 In the first issue of Porcupine's Gazette, 4 Mar,'Address to the public'.
All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millionswhichit iscontinuallysucking up fromtherestof the kingdom.
William Cobbett— 1822 Rural Rides (published1830), entry for 25 Sep.
DEAL is a most villainous place. It is full of filthy-looking people.Great desolationof abomination has beengoing on here.
William Cobbett— 1823 On Deal, Kent. Rural Rides (published1830), entry for 3 Sep.
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— 1825 On Guildford, Surrey. Rural Rides (published1830), entry for 23 Oct.
WESTBURY, a nasty odious rotten-borough, a really rotten place.
William Cobbett— 1826 On Westbury, Wiltshire. Rural Rides (published1830), entry for 3 Sep.
From a very earlyage, I had imbibed the opinion, that it was every man's duty to do all that lay in his power to leave his countryas good as he had found it.
William Cobbett— 1832 Political Register, 22 Dec.
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— Political Register (10-17 July 1802), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 8.
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— Letter (10 February 1804).
I have always said, that, without commerce...this island could not possibly continue to be great...but, it is the system of rendering every thing commercial; of making merchants and bankers into Lords; of making a set of fund-dealers the distributors of honours and rewards...it is this system that I reprobate.
William Cobbett— Political Register (11 January 1806), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 15.
I cannot...perceive any ground for hoping that any practical good would, while the funding system exists in its present extent, result from the adoption of any of those projects, which have professed to have in view what is called Parliamentary Reform...when the funding system, from whatever cause, shall cease to operate upon civil and political liberty, there will be no need of projects for parliamentary reform. The parliament will, as far as shall be necessary, then reform itself.
William Cobbett— Political Register (15 March 1806), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 11.
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— “The Last Ten Years,” Political Register (4 January 1812).
Having still in my recollection so many excellent men, to whose grandfathers, upon the same spots, my grandfather had yielded cheerful obedience and reverence, it is not without sincere sorrow that I have beheld many of the sons of these men driven from their fathers' mansions, or holding them as little better than tenants or stewards, while the swarms of Placemen, Pensioners, Contractors, and Nabobs...have usurped a large part of the soil.
William Cobbett— Political Register (21 December 1816), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 31.
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— “To Mr. Benbow,” Political Register (29 November 1817)
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— “To Parson Malthus,” Political Register (8 May 1819)
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— Political Register, XLVI, pp. 513-514 (31 May 1823)
As to politics, we were like the rest of the country people in England; that is to say, we neither knew nor thought any thing about the matter.
William Cobbett— P. 21 (Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796))
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— P. 22 (Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796))
Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate in adhering to an opinion once adopted.
William Cobbett— P. 23 (Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796))
I would have these good people to recollect, that the laws of this country hold out to foreigners an offer of all that liberty of the press which Americans enjoy, and that, if this liberty be abridged, by whatever means it may be done, the laws and the constitution, and all together, is a mere cheat; a snare to catch the credulous and enthusiastic of every other nation; a downright imposition on the world.
William Cobbett— P. 59 (Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796))
Grammar, perfectly understood, enables us, not only to express our meaning fully and clearly, but so to express it as to enable us to defy the ingenuity of man to give to our words any other meaning than that which we ourselves intend them to express.
William Cobbett— Page 14. (A Grammar of the English Language (1818))
Nouns of number, or multitude, such as Mob, Parliament, Rabble, House of Commons, Regiment, Court of King's Bench, Den of Thieves, and the like.
William Cobbett— Page 96. (A Grammar of the English Language (1818))
Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.
William Cobbett— Page 180. (A Grammar of the English Language (1818))
As to the power which money gives, it is that of brute force, it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet, and of the bribed press, tongue and pen.
William Cobbett— Letter 1, p. 36.
Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.
William Cobbett— “To a Father,” letter 5
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— Ch. 2, p. 28
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— Ch. 8, p. 99
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— Ch. 12, pp. 185-186
I view tea drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an en-genderer of effeminancy and laziness, a debaucher of youth and maker of misery for old age. Thus he makes that miserable progress towards that death which he finds ten or fifteen years sooner than he would have found it if he had made his wife brew beer instead of making tea.
William Cobbett— William Cobbett, Cottage Economy (1821).
