All my plans in private life; all my pursuits; all my designs, wishes, and thoughts, have this one great object in view: the overthrow of the ruffian… - William Cobbett

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.

If all men were upon an equality in point of means, England would become what the wilds of America are, inhabited by wild men; nobody would work except just to provide food and raiment for the day; and our country would become the most beggarly upon the earth, instead of being what it formerly was (and I hope and trust will be again) the pride of its people and the envy of the world.

[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.