Daniel Defoe famous quotes

It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Leadership #Army #Sheep

It is never too late to be wise.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Wise #Too Late #Being Wise

'Tis no sin to cheat the devil.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Cheating #Devil #Sin

I saw the Cloud, though I did not foresee the Storm.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Clouds #Storm #Saws

Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Fear #Danger #Thousand

All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Thank You #Spring #Thankfulness

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Soul #Lust #Literature

Self-destruction is the effect of cowardice in the highest extreme.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Self Esteem #Self Destruction #Cowardice

I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Inspirational #People #Empathy

Justice is always violent to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Party #Eye #Men

For I cannot think that GOD Almighty ever made them [women] so delicate, so glorious creatures; and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind; with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our Houses, Cooks, and Slaves.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Thinking #House

It happen'd one Day about Noon going towards my Boat, I was exceedingly surpriz'd with the Print of a Man's naked Foot on the Shore.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Feet #One Day

He that opposes his own judgment against the consent of the times ought to be backed with unanswerable truths; and he that has truth on his side is a fool as well as a coward if he is afraid to own it because of other men's opinions.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Coward #Fool #Opinion

Law is but a heathen word for power.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Power #Heathen

Pleasure is a thief to business.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Thieves #Pleasure

All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Evil

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 it, and, after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Children #Distance #Sea

He look'd a little disorder'd, when he said this, but I did not apprehend any thing from it at that time, believing as it us'd to be said, that they who do those things never talk of them; or that they who talk of such things never do them.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Believe #Looks #Littles

I am giving an account of what was, not of what ought or ought not to be.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Giving #Accounts

Redemption from sin is greater then redemption from affliction.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Redemption #Affliction #Sin

Never, ladies, marry a fool. Any husband rather than a fool. With some other husband you may be unhappy, but with a fool you will be miserable.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Husband #Unhappy #May

Manchester, one of the greatest, if not really the greatest mere village in England.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Village #England

Avery fine city; the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together? In a word,'tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Cities #Together #Four

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 upon it with our eyes open.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Eye #Secret #Destruction

These reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence to me, and very thankful for my present condition, with all its hardships and misfortunes ; and this part also I cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are apt, in their misery, to say, Is any affliction like mine? Let them consider how much worse the cases of some people are, and their case might have been, if Providence had thought fit.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Reflection #People #Hardship

I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what I wanted : and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them ; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Spring #Dark #People

And I add this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true Sense of things, they will find Deliverance from Sin a much greater Blessing than Deliverance from Affliction.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Blessing #Add #Hints

Expect nothing and you'll always be surprised
-- Daniel Defoe

#Expect Nothing

Tis very strange men should be so fond of being wickeder than they are.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Strange #Should

He that hath truth on his side is a fool as well as a coward if he is afraid to own it because fo other mens's opinions.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Coward #Fool #Sides

Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Blood #Tyrants

Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Doors #Vices

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Christian #Country #Ethos

An Englishman will fairly drink as much As will maintain two families of Dutch.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Two #Literature #Dutch

Today we love what tomorrow we hate, today we seek what tomorrow we shun, today we desire what tomorrow we fear, nay, even tremble at the apprehensions of.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Hate #Desire #Today

For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Grief #Joy #Firsts

Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself when apparent to the eyes ; and we find the burden of anxiety greater, by much, than the evil which we are anxious about : ...
-- Daniel Defoe

#Eye #Evil #Anxiety

...in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into...
-- Daniel Defoe

#Mean #Doors #Evil

I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth ... that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Wise #Men #Fool

It put me upon reflecting how little repining there would be among mankind at any condition of life, if people would rather compare their condition with those that were worse, in order to be thankful, than be always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their murmurings and complaining.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Order #People #Being Thankful

Those people cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them because they see and covet what He has not given them. All of our discontents for what we want appear to me to spring from want of thankfulness for what we have.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Spring #People #Thankfulness

This grieved me heartily ; 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.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Judging #Too Late #Cost

Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Want #States #Enjoy

A rich man is an honest man--no thanks to him; for he would be a double knave, to cheat mankind when he had no need of it: he has no occasion to press upon his integrity, nor so much as to touch upon the borders of dishonesty.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Integrity #Men #Knaves

Reason, it is true, is DICTATOR in the Society of Mankind; from her there ought to lie no Appeal; But here we want a Pope in our Philosophy, to be the infallible Judge of what is or is not Reason.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Philosophy #Lying #Judging

She is always married too soon, who gets a bad husband, and she is never married too late, who gets a good one.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Marriage #Husband #Too Late

Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Womb #Wit

Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Sex #Women #Understanding

Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed, Will starve the Members, and distract the Head.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Feds #Members #Wit

A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Women #Accomplishment #Being Thankful

As for women that do not think their own safety worth their thought, that impatient of their present state, resolve as they call it to take the first good Christian that comes; that runs into matrimony, as a horse rushes into battle; I can say nothing to them, but this, that they are a sort of ladies that are to be pray'd for among the rest of distemper'd people; and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Christian #Running #Horse

I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call ourselves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Mother #Country #Father

My True Name is so well known in the Records, or Registers at Newgate, and in the Old-Baily, and there are some things of such Consequence still depending there, relating to my particular Conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my Name, or the Account of my Family to this Work; perhaps, after my Death it may be better known, at present it would not be proper, no, not tho' a general Pardon should be issued, even without Exceptions and reserve of Persons or Crimes.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Book #Names #Records

Friends are good,--good, if well chosen.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Wells #Chosen

We are very fond of some families because they can be traced beyond the Conquest, whereas indeed the farther back, the worse, as being the nearer allied to a race of robbers and thieves.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Race #Thieves #Ancestry

This town of Sheffield is very populous and large, the streets narrow, and the houses dark and black, occasioned by the continued smoke of the forges, which are always at work: Here they make all sorts of cutlery-ware, but especially that of edged-tools, knives, razors, axes, &. and nails
-- Daniel Defoe

#Dark #Knives #Axes

How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man!
-- Daniel Defoe

#Life #Men #Strange

No man commits evil for the sake of it; even the Devil himself has some farther design in sinning, than barely the wicked part of it.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Evil #Design

He that is rich is wise, And all men learned poverty despise.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Wise #Men #Poverty

No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Character #Dark #Men

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 continues to flow or till something dark and dreadful brings us to ourselves again.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Sleep #Dark #Wickedness

What are the sorrows of other men to us, and what their joy?...
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Joy #Sorrow

I smil'd to my self at the sight of this money, O drug! said I aloud, what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no not the taking off of the ground, one of those knives is worth all this heap, I have no manner of use for thee, e'en remain where thou art, and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving. However, upon second thoughts, I took it away...
-- Daniel Defoe

#Art #Sight #Self

In trouble to be troubled, Is to have your trouble doubled.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Trouble

All men would be tyrants if they could.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Tyrants #Would Be

Call upon me in the Day of Trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me...Wait on the Lord, and be of good Cheer, and he shall strengthen thy Heart; wait, I say, on the Lord:' It is impossible to express the Comfort this gave me. In Answer, I thankfully laid down the Book, and was no more sad, at least, not on that Occasion.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Cheer #Book #Heart

Wherever God erects a house of prayer the Devil always builds a chapel there; And 't will be found, upon examination, the latter has the largest congregation.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Prayer #House #Devil

In their religion they are so uneven, That each man goes his own byway to heaven.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Heaven #Religion

The best of men cannot suspend their fate; The good die early, and the bad die late.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Fate #Men #Best Of Me

Actions receive their tincture from the times, And as they change are virtues made or crimes
-- Daniel Defoe

#Action #Virtue #Crime

Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Pride #President #Peers

Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Honesty #Men #Knaves

And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Doubt #Atheism #Mankind

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

#Games #Cheat

As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is the worst of all snares.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Roots #Evil #Poverty

Now, said I aloud, My dear Father's Words are come to pass: God's Justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me: I rejected the Voice of Providence.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Father #Voice #Justice

Great families of yesterday we show, And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Yesterday #Parent #Lord

As I had once done thus in my breaking away from my Parents, so I could not be content now, but I must go and leave the happy View I had of being a rich and thriving Man in my new Plantation, only to pursue a rash and immoderate Desire of rising faster than the Nature of the Thing admitted; and thus I cast my self down again into the deepest Gulph of human Misery that ever Man fell into, or perhaps could be consistent with Life and a State of Health in the World.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Men #Self #Views

He that is rich is wise.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Wise #Rich

It is men of desperate fortunes on the one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who go abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Adventure #Men #Hands

Abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our greatest adversity.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Mean #Adversity #Prosperity

All the good things of the world are no further good to us than as they are of use; and of all we may heap up we enjoy only as much as we can use, and no more.
-- Daniel Defoe

#World #May #Use

The Dutch must be understood as they really are, the Middle Persons in Trade, the Factors and Brokers of Europe... they buy to sell again, take in to send out again, and the greatest Part of their vast Commerce consists in being supply'd from All Parts of the World, that they may supply All th World Again.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Europe #History #World

In trouble to be troubled, Is to have your trouble doubled! [People who get upset and worried at the first sign of misfortune are only making their situation worse and thereby doubling their troubles. Stay calm and happy. Cool and joyful heads are more likely to survive and prevail.]
-- Daniel Defoe

#People #Upset #Stay Calm

The height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm without.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Wisdom #Storm #Weight

Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Certain #Taxes

Alas the Church of England! What with Popery on one hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between two thieves!
-- Daniel Defoe

#Hands #Two #Church

No shoots, says Friday, no yet, me shoot now, me no kill; me stay, give you one more laugh.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Friday #Giving #Laughing

Not the man in the moon, not the groaning-board, not the speaking of friar Bacon's brazen- head, not the inspiration of mother Shipton, or the miracles of Dr. Faustus, things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.
-- Daniel Defoe

#Mother #Inspiration #Moon