Daniel Defoe quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Daniel Defoe on Wise Famous Quotes.

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.

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

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

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

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

And so my story begins, like so many stories, with a woman

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

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.

Expect nothing and you'll always be surprised

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

Pleasure is a thief to business.

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

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

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

The best of men cannot defend their fate: the good die early, the bad die late.

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

Wait on the Lord, and be of good cheer, and he shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.

Redemption from sin is greater then redemption from affliction.

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

In trouble to be troubled, Is to have your trouble doubled.

The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late.

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

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

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

Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me.

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.

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design.

Thus the Government of our Virtue was broken and I exchang'd the Place of Friend for that unmusical harsh-sounding Title of Whore.

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

A True Born Englishman's a contradiction!
In speech and irony, in fact a fiction

walked about a furlong

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

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

Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.

Friends are good,
good, if well chosen.

Pride the first peer and president of hell.

miserable of all conditions in this world: that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and

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

I saw the Cloud, though I did not foresee the Storm.

For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.

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

'Tis no sin to cheat the devil.

inclinations prompted me to. But being one day at Hull, where

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

I spent eighteen days entirely in widening and deepening my cave,

In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflections,

Sure we are all made by some secret Power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky.

It is never too late to be wise.

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

[The Devil's] laws are easy, and his gentle sway, Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey .

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

Books are useful only to such whose genius are suitable to the subject of them

He that is rich is wise.

Misfortunes seldom come alone.

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.

If God much strong, much might, as the devil, why God not kill the devil, so make him no more wicked?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Necessity makes an honest man a knave.

And of all the plagues with which mankind are cursed, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.

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

And in that one night's wickedness I drowned all my repentance,all my reflections upon my past conduct,and all my resolution for the future.