Daniel Defoe Quotes

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...

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.

The great Maker of the world, that He does not leave His creatures so absolutely destitute, but that in the worst circumstances they have always something to be thankful for, and sometimes are nearer...

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...

For now I had five children by him: the only work perhaps that fools are good for.

All this labour I was at the expence of, purely from my apprehension on the account of the print of a man’s foot which I had seen; for as yet I never saw any human creature come near the island, and I...

And now I saw how easy it was for the Providence of God to make the most miserable Condition Mankind could be in worse. Now I look'd back upon my desolate solitary Island, as the most pleasant Place i...

And now, increasing in business and in wealth, my head began to be full of projects and undertakings beyond my reach; such as are indeed often the ruin of the best heads in business.

Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting, or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me, to think...

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...

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, says he again if god much strong, much might as the devil, why god no kill the devil, so make him no more do wicked?

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...

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...

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 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 rather wished for their ruin, than studied to avoid it.

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...

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...

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.