Quotes from William Cobbett

You never know what you can do till you try.

Never esteem men on account of their riches or their station. Respect goodness, find it where you may.

Happiness, or misery, is in the mind. It is the mind that lives.

Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of 'speculation'; but which ought to be called Gambling.

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

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.

To have a dutiful family, the father's principle of rule must be love, not fear. His sway must be gentle, or he will have only an unwilling and short-lived obedience.

I defy you to agitate any fellow with a full stomach.

To live well, to enjoy all things that make life pleasant, is the right of every man who constantly uses his strength judiciously and lawfully.

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.

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.

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.

I view the tea-drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frome, an engender of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth and maker of misery for old age.