189 Quotes by Daniel Defoe

It is very rare that the providence of God casts us into any condition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may see something or other to be thankful for; and may see others in worse circumstances than our own.

I was very pensive upon the subject of my present condition, when reason as it were expostulated with me t’other way, thus: Well, you are in a desolate condition, ’tis true, but pray remember, Where are the ten? Why were not they sav’d and you lost? Why were you singled out? Is it better to be here or there, and then I pointed to the sea? All evils are to be consider’d with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.

How mercifully can our Creator treat His creatures, even in those conditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in destruction!

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 :...

Man is a short-sighted creature, sees but a very little way before him; and as his passions are none of his best friends, so his particular affections are generally his worst counselors.

The art of writing an English prose at once scholarly, clear-cut, and vigorous, was well understood by Defoe’s great contemporaries, Dryden, Swift, and Congreve; it does not seem to have occurred to Defoe that he could learn anything from their practice. He has his reward. “Robinson Crusoe” may continue to hold the child and the kitchen wench; but the “Essay on Dramatic Poesy,” “The Battle of the Books,” and “Love for Love,” are for the men and women of culture.

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

As for Women that do not think their own Safety worth their Thought, that impatient of their present State, resolve as they call it to take the first good Christian that comes, that run into Matrimony, as a Horse rushes into the Battle, I can say nothing to them, but this, that they are a Sort of Ladies that are to be pray’d for among the rest of distemper’d People...

If I swing by the string, I shall hear the bell ring, And then there’s an end of poor Jenny.