Daniel Defoe 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.

It is never too late to be wise.

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

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

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

Justice is always Violence to the Party offending, for every Man is Innocent in his own Eyes.

Expect nothing and you'll always be surprised

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

Necessity makes an honest man a knave.

Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

'Tis no sin to cheat the devil.

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

Though I don't like the crew, I won't sink the ship. In fact, in time of storm I'll do my best to save it. You see, we are all in this craft and must sink or swim together.

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

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

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

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

All men would be tyrants if they could.

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

Business neglected is business lost.

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

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

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

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

Pleasure is a thief to business.

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

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.

Law is but a heathen word for power.

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.

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

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.

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

Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.

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.

For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.

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

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

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.

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.

He that is rich is wise.

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

Redemption from sin is greater then redemption from affliction.

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.