For now I had five children by him: the only work perhaps that fools are good for.
Very bad indeed. Defoe never acquired a really good style, and can in no true sense be called a master of the English tongue. Nature had gifted Defoe with untiring energy, a keen taste for public affa...
La crainte du danger est dix mille fois plus effrayante que le danger lui-meme,et nous trouvons le poids de l'anxiete plus lourd de beaucoup que le mal que nous redoutans.
For that gratitude was no inherent virtue in the nature of man, nor did men always square their dealings by the obligations they had received so much as they did by the advantages they expected.
Em un mot la nature et l'experience m'appirent,apres mure reflexion,que toutes les bonnes choses de l'univers ne sont bonnes pour nous que suivont l'usage que nous en faisons,et qu'on n'en jouit qu'au...
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...
[...] 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.
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...
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...
It is for this reason that I have so largely set down the particulars of the caresses I was treated with by the jeweller, and also by this prince; not to make the story an incentive to the vice, which...
In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me, upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good to us than they are for our use; and that, whatever we m...
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 shot at a great bird which I saw sitting upon a tree on the side of a great wood.
I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret, overruling decree, that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upo...
I had never handled a tool in my life, and yet in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it.
I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain, and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a ship : then fancy that, at a vast distance, I spied a sail, please myself with the hopes of...
How strange a Chequer Work of Providence is the Life of Man! and by what secret differing Springs are the Affections hurry'd about as differing Circumstances present! To Day we love what to Morrow we...
But it was impossible to make any impression upon the middling people and the working labouring poor. Their fears were predominant over all their passions, and they threw away their money in a most di...
But how just it has been! And how should all men reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be convinced of t...
And by what secret differing springs are the affections hurried about, as differing circumstances present! To-day we love what to-morrow we hate- to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun- to-day we desir...