Daniel Defoe Quotes

I afterwards made it a certain Rule with me, That whenever I found those secret Hints, or pressings of my Mind, to doing, or not doing any Thing that presented; or to going this Way, or that Way, I ne...

I had been tricked once by that Cheat called love, but the Game was over...

I shot at a great bird which I saw sitting upon a tree on the side of a great wood.

I smiled at him, and told him that men in our circumstances were past the operation of fear: that seeing almost every condition that could be, was better than that which we were supposed to be in, we...

I stood still an hour or thereabouts without trespassing on our orders (for so long the caravan was in passing the gate), to look at it on every side, near and far off; I mean what was within my view:...

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, a...

If you have any regard to your future happiness, any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving your fortunes, or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies, marry a fool;...

If you have regard to your future happiness, any view of living comfortably with a husband, any hope of preserving your fortunes or restoring them after any disaster, never, ladies, marry a fool. Any...

It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which exists not.

It is very rare that the providence of God casts us into any condition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may see something or other to be thankful for; and may see others in worse circums...

Redemption from sin is greater then redemption from affliction.

So possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continue...

Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.

Thus you see having committed a Crime once, is a sad Handle to the committing of it again; whereas all the Regret, and Reflections wear off when the Temptation renews it self; had I not yielded to see...

To conclude: having staid near four mouths in Hamburgh, I came from thence over land to the Hague, where I embarked in the packet, and arrived in London the tenth of January 1705, having been gone fro...

Under these dreadful apprehensions I looked back on the life I had led with the utmost contempt and abhorrence. I blushed, and wondered at myself how I could act thus, how I could divest myself of mod...

Well then, said I, if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me, seeing on the other hand, if I had all the world, and shou...

Where love is the case, the doctor's an ass

[...] and now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.

A near View of Death would soon reconcile Men of good Priciples one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy Scituation in Life, and our putting these Things far from us, that our Breaches...