Richard Cobden Quotes

A newspaper should be the maximum of information, and the minimum of comment.

For every credibility gap there is a gullibility gap.

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce, and the diffusion of education, than upon the labours of cabinets and foreign offices.

Wars have ever been but another aristocratic mode of plundering and oppressing commerce.

Peace will come to earth when the people have more to do with each other and governments less.

On the contrary, all the world would point to that nation as violating a treaty, by going to war with a country with whom they had engaged to enter into arbitration.

The landlords are not agriculturists; that is an abuse of terms which has been too long tolerated.

Look not to the politicians; look to yourselves.

I am not accustomed to pay fulsome compliments to the English, by telling them that they are superior to all the world; but this I can say, that they do not deserve the name of cowards.

I took the repeal of the Corn Laws as light amusement compared with the difficult task of inducing the priests of all denominations to agree to suffer the people to be educated.

It has been one of my difficulties, in arguing this question out of doors with friends or strangers, that I rarely find any intelligible agreement as to the object of the war.

I have been particularly struck with the overwhelming evidence which is given as to the fitness of the natives of India for high offices and employments.

Luck relies on chance, labor on character.

You may keep Turkey on the map of Europe, you may call the country by the name of Turkey if you like, but do not think you can keep up the Mahommedan rule in the country.

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling, I've felt all its favours and found its decay; Sweet was its blessing, kind its caressing, But now it is fled, fled far, far away.

Treaties of peace, made after war, are entrusted to individuals to negotiate and carry out.

But it is my happiness to be half Welsh, and that the better half.

This great oracle of the East India Company himself admits that, if there is no power vested in the Court of Directors but that of the patronage, there is really no government vested in them at all.

I believe it has been said that one copy of The Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical works of Thucydides.

From 1836, down to last year, there is no proof of the Government having any confidence in the duration of peace, or possessing increased security against war.

Cobden was the greatest statesman and prophet of the century. His speeches are an inspiration. A man whose disciple I am willing to confess I am.

the principles of political economy have elevated the working class above the place they ever filled before.

People who eat potatoes will never be able to perform their abilities in whatever job they choose to have.