William Cobbett Quotes

[T]he very best and most virtuous of all mankind, the agricultural labourers of this land, so favoured by God Almighty, and for so many ages the freest and happiest country in the world!

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.

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.

Commerce, Opulence, Luxury, Effeminacy, Cowardice, Slavery: these are the stages of national degradation. We are in the fourth; and, I beg the reader to consider, to look into history, to trace states in their fall, and then say how rapid is the latter part of the progress! Of the symptoms of effeminacy none is so certain as a change from athletic and hardy sports, or exercises, to those requiring less bodily strength, and exposing the persons engaged in them to less bodily suffering; and when this change takes place, be assured that national cowardice is at no great distance, the general admiration of deeds of hardihood having already been considerably lessened.

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.

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.

[I]f you maintain that the poor have no right, no legal right, to relief, you loosen all the ligaments of property; and begin that career, which must end in a contest for property between the poor and the rich: you loosen all the bonds of allegiance; you get rid of all its duties; you proclaim that might, and not right, is to prevail; and, in short, you do all in your power to break up the social compact; to produce confusion; and to leave to chance a settlement anew.

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.

[T]he duty of allegiance implies the reciprocal duty of protection; and we have now seen, that it is the duty of a state to give protection to all the citizens, or persons, living under it, and owing it allegiance. Not only protection against violences committed against the property, or the person, of a man: not only protection against assaults, arsons, and robberies; but against hunger, nakedness, and all those things which expose life and limb to danger. This protection is a condition inseparable from the duty of allegiance; and, if the condition be not observed, the bond in this, as in all other cases, is forfeited.

There is a Bill before the House of Commons which, under disguise, is intended to eradicate boxing, bull-baiting, and everything that Mr. Bowles, or his coadjutor Mr. Perceval, chooses to call a misdemeanour. I have not time to communicate what I wish to say; but I have the Bill here, and, if you will be so good as to call any time to-day or to-morrow, I will point out the danger. There is no time to be lost; because I dare say that this Bill, which goes to the rearing of puritanism into a system, would, if you did not lay hold of it, pass unnoticed.

Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate in adhering to an opinion once adopted.

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.

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.

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.

Of all the bull-baiting in England one half is carried on in Staffordshire and Lancashire. The best soldiers in the kingdom, the most brave and the most faithful to their colours, come out of those counties, particularly Staffordshire. The bravery and fidelity of Staffordshire men are proverbial through the army, and has been so for two hundred years past. The Staffordshire Regiment of Militia is not only the finest but best-behaved regiment of militia in the kingdom. Wherever this regiment goes, it is followed by a score or two of bull-dogs, no bad emblem of the character of the soldiers themselves.