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Top Daniel Defoe Quotes

Browse top 83 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Daniel Defoe.

Favorite Daniel Defoe Quotes

1. "...I should always find, the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life..." ~ Daniel Defoe
2. "All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have." ~ Daniel Defoe
3. "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
4. "An Englishman will fairly drink as much As will maintain two families of Dutch." ~ Daniel Defoe
5. "The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late." ~ Daniel Defoe
6. "Justice is always violent to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes." ~ Daniel Defoe
7. "Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination." ~ Daniel Defoe
8. "I had been tricked once by that Cheat called love, but the Game was over..." ~ Daniel Defoe
9. "I had great Reason to consider it as a Determination of Heaven, that in this desolate Place, and in this desolate Manner I should end my life; the Tears would run plentifully down my Face when I made these Reflections, and sometimes I would expostulate with myself, Why Providence should thus compleately ruine its Creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable, so without Help abandon'd, so entirely depress'd, that it could be hardly rational to be thankful for such a Life." ~ Daniel Defoe
10. "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
11. "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 should lose the favour and blessing of God, there would be no comparison in the loss?" ~ Daniel Defoe
12. "Books are useful only to such whose genius are suitable to the subject of them" ~ Daniel Defoe
13. "And so my story begins, like so many stories, with a woman" ~ Daniel Defoe
14. "quel guillochis oeuvre par la providence que la vie de l'homme! par combien de voies secretes et contraires les circonstances diverses ne precipitent-elles pas nos affections! aujourd'hui nous aimons ce que demain nous hairons,aujourd'hui nous recherchons ce que nous fuirons demain,aujourd'hui nous desirons ce que demain nous fera peur..." ~ Daniel Defoe
15. "Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world: that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and to set, in the description of good and evil, on the credit side of the account." ~ Daniel Defoe
16. "How infinitely good that Providence is which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him!" ~ Daniel Defoe
17. "For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first." ~ Daniel Defoe
18. "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
19. "Redemption from sin is greater then redemption from affliction." ~ Daniel Defoe
20. "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
21. "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
22. "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
23. "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
24. "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
25. "Misfortunes seldom come alone." ~ Daniel Defoe
26. "But, he says again, if God much strong, much might as the Devil, why God no kill the Devil, so make him no more do wicked? I was strangely surprised at his question, [...] And at first I could not tell what to say, so I pretended not to hear him..." ~ Daniel Defoe
27. "If a young women once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if she believes herself charming charming enough to captive him, 'tis natural to expect the effects of it." ~ Daniel Defoe
28. "And of all the plagues with which mankind are cursed, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst." ~ Daniel Defoe
29. "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." ~ Daniel Defoe
30. "Let no man despise the secret hints and notices of danger, which sometimes are given him, when he may think there is no possibility of its being real. That such hints and notices are given us, I believe few that have made any observations of things can deny; that they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse of spirits, we cannot doubt; and if the tendency of them seems to be to warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent, whether supreme, or inferior, or subordinate, is not the question; and that they are given for our good?" ~ Daniel Defoe
31. "...For now I had five children by him: the only work perhaps that fools are good for." ~ Daniel Defoe
32. "Strah od opasnosti je deset tisuca puta snažniji nego sama opasnost kad se pojavi pred ocima." ~ Daniel Defoe
33. "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" ~ Daniel Defoe
34. "walked about a furlong" ~ Daniel Defoe
35. "nosotros, incluso más que nosotros mis­mos, a utilizarlos correctamente. A veces, sentía una gran melancolía al pensar en el uso tan mediocre que hacemos de nuestras facultades, aun cuando nuestro entendimiento está iluminado por la gran llama de la instrucción," ~ Daniel Defoe
36. "Lo que constituye la salvación de un hombre, es la ruina de otro," ~ Daniel Defoe
37. "In the first ages they were wise men; in the middle age, madmen; in these latter ages, cunning men: in the earliest time they were honest; in the middle time, rogues; in these last times, fools: at first they dealt with nature; then with the Devil; and now not with the Devil, or with nature either: in the first ages the magicians were wiser than the people; in the second age, wickeder than the people; and in our age, the people are both wiser and wickeder than the magicians." ~ Daniel Defoe
38. "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: and the guide, who had been extolling it for the wonder of the world, was mighty eager to hear my opinion of it. I told him it was a most excellent thing to keep out the Tartars; which he happened not to understand as I meant it and so took it for a compliment; but the old pilot laughed! "Oh, Seignior Inglese," says he, "you speak in colours.""In colours!" said I; "what do you mean by that?""Why, you speak what looks white this way and black that way - gay one way and dull another. You tell him it is a good wall to keep out Tartars; you tell me by that it is good for nothing but to keep out Tartars. I understand you, Seignior Inglese, I understand you; but Seignior Chinese understood you his own way." ~ Daniel Defoe
39. "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." ~ Daniel Defoe
40. "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 of the woods, the mountains, the desarts I was in; and how I was a prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my hands and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together; and this was still worse to me; for if I could burst out into tears, or vent my self by words, it would go off, and the grief having exhausted it self would abate." ~ Daniel Defoe
41. "Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long boat with the shoulder of mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africk; but this was in vain." ~ Daniel Defoe
42. "But all I could make use of was all that was valuable. I had enough to eat and to supply my wants, and what was all the rest to me? If I killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or the vermin. If I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled. The trees that I cut down were lying to rot on the ground. I could make no more use of them than for fewel; and that I had no occasion for, but to dress my food.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 may heap up indeed to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use and no more." ~ Daniel Defoe
43. "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 distracted manner upon those whimsies." ~ Daniel Defoe
44. "si los hombres compararan su situación con la de otros que están en peores circunstancias y no con los que están mejor, se sentirían agradecidos y no se quejarían de sus desgracias." ~ Daniel Defoe
45. "Pues las alegrías súbitas, como las penas, al principio desconciertan." ~ Daniel Defoe
46. "En este sentido, y desde entonces, he observado lo incongruentes e irracionales que son los seres humanos, especialmente los jóvenes, frente a la razón que debe guiarlos en estos casos; es decir, que no se avergüenzan de pecar sino de arrepentirse de su pecado; que no se avergüenzan de hacer cosas por las que, legítimamente, serían tomados por tontos, sino de retractarse, por lo que serían tomados por sabios." ~ Daniel Defoe
47. "Expect nothing and you'll always be surprised" ~ Daniel Defoe
48. "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
49. "Tis very strange men should be so fond of being wickeder than they are." ~ Daniel Defoe
50. "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
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Today's Quote

[...] far loro perdere la fede nella felicità come Bene Sovrano e far loro credere, viceversa, che la meta è comunque altrove, in qualche punto al di fuori della presente sfera umana; che il fine della vita non è il mantenimento del benessere, ma qualche intensificazione della coscienza, qualche accrescimento del sapere."
Author: Aldous Huxley

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Con
Ear
Thin
Thou
Ten
Hen
Wit
Sin
Per
Tan
End
Hey
Able
Ring
Here
Son
Era
Mad
Though
Sit
Evil
Self
Hand
Los
Off
Pen
Side
Ought
Call
Use
Ways
Lie
Once
Hear
Sing
Times
Thank
Condition
Tend
Ours
Tie
Said
Might
Lit
Creature
Danger
Die
She
Thus
Few

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