Daniel Defoe Quotes [Quotations, aphorisms, proverbs, sayings]

Daniel Defoe Quotes

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.
An Essay upon Projects (1697)

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond,
and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear.
An Essay upon Projects (1697)

The Best of Men cannot suspend their Fate;
The Good die early, and the Bad die late.
The Character of the late Dr. Samuel Annesley (1697)

We loved the Doctrine for the Teacher's sake.
The Character of the late Dr. Samuel Annesley (1697)

From this amphibious, ill-born mob began,
That vain ill-natured thing, an Englishman.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

And of all plagues with which mankind are curst,
ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

Pride, the first peer, and president of Hell.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

Whenever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

Fop from the time of 1704-1712

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes
Lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes;
Antiquity and birth are needless here;
'Tis impudence and money makes a peer.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

An Englishman will fairly drink as much
As will maintain two families of Dutch.
The True-Born Englishman: A Satire (1701)

Nature has left this tincture in the blood,
That all men would be tyrants if they could.
The History of the Kentish Petition (1701)

But justice is always violence to the party offending,
for every man is innocent in his own eyes.
The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702)

Middle age is youth without its levity,
And age without decay.
The Review (1704-13)

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.
Jure Divino: A Satyr in Twelve Books (1706)

He bade me observe it, and I should always find,
that the calamities of life were shared among
the upper and lower part of mankind; but that
the middle station had the fewest disasters.
Robinson Crusoe (1719)

All our Discontents about what we want, appeared to me,
to spring from the Want of Thankfulness for what we have.
Robinson Crusoe (1719)

It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was
exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on
the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand.
Robinson Crusoe (1719)

The Height of human Wisdom was to bring our Tempers
down to our Circumstances; and to make a Calm within,
under the Weight of the greatest Storm without.
Robinson Crusoe (1719)

What is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh.
The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

And of all plagues with which mankind are curst,
Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.
The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

In trouble to be troubled
Is to have your trouble doubled.
The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe (1720)

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.
Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe (1720)

Common people's dress 1698

As covetousness is the root of all evil,
so poverty is the worst of all snares.
Moll Flanders (1722)

The vice came in always at the door of necessity,
not at the door of inclination.
Moll Flanders (1722)

'Tis no sin to cheat the devil.
History of the Devil, Part II, Ch. 10, (1726)

Wealth is wisdom, he that is rich is wise.
The Compleat English Gentleman (1729)

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.
The Life & Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies (1740)

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