Daniel Defoe

“'Tis no sin to cheat the devil.”

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

“Pride the first peer and president of hell.”

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

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

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

“I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.”

“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.”

“He that is rich is wise.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“All men would be tyrants if they could.”

“...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,...”

“...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...”