Daniel Defoe Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I had dropped a good design, which I had once bent my thoughts upon, and that was to try if I could not make some of my barley into malt, and then try to brew myself some beer.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Middle age is youth without its levity And age without decay.

...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, ...

When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown.Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, The good of subjects is the end of kings.