189 Quotes by Daniel Defoe

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

He look'd a little disorder'd, when he said this, but I did not apprehend any thing from it at that time, believing as it us'd to be said, that they who do those things never talk of them; or that they who talk of such things never do them.

...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,...

Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger it self, when apparent to the eyes; and we find the burthen of anxiety greater by much, than the evil which we are anxious about; and which was worse than all this, I had not that relief in this trouble from the resignation I used to practise, that I hop'd to have.

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.

One mischief always introduces another.

Num trabalho honesto", costumava dizer [Bartholomew Roberts], "o que se vê é gente magra, salários baixos e muito trabalho. Neste daqui, o que temos é fartura e saciedade, prazer e alegria, liberdade e poder. E quem não iria fazer o prato da balança pesar para este lado, quando tudo o que se arrisca daqui, na pior das hipóteses, é apenas um olhar ou dois de tristeza, no instante em que se sufoca? Não, meu lema será sempre por uma vida feliz e curta.

Não se deve entender como pirata uma pessoa agindo sob constrangimento, mas sim alguém que age livremente. Pois nesse caso, não é o ato em si mesmo que torna alguém culpado, mas sim a sua livre vontade de cometê-lo.

But I must go back here to the particular incidents which occur to my thoughts of the time of the visitation, and particularly to the time of their shutting up the houses in the first part of their sickness; for before the sickness was come to its height people had more room to make their observations than they had afterward; but when it was in the extremity there was no such thing as communication with one another, as before.