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I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret, overruling decree, that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon it with our eyes open.

Daniel Defoe

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Daniel Defoe
Age: 70 †
Born: 1660
Born: September 30
Died: 1731
Died: April 24
Businessperson
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Poet
Prosaist
Publicist
Publisher
Writer
London
England
Daniel Foe
Eyes
Hurries
Secret
Decree
Call
Urge
Though
Rush
Upon
Urges
Eye
Instruments
Even
Destruction
Open
Overruling

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The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.
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A rich man is an honest man--no thanks to him for he would be a double knave, to cheat mankind when he had no need of it: he has no occasion to press upon his integrity, nor so much as to touch upon the borders of dishonesty.
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Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.
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Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
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I am giving an account of what was, not of what ought or ought not to be.
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I had been tricked once by that Cheat called love, but the Game was over.
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Alas the Church of England! What with Popery on one hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between two thieves!
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Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.
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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.
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Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
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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.
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It is never too late to be wise.
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Not the man in the moon, not the groaning-board, not the speaking of friar Bacon's brazen- head, not the inspiration of mother Shipton, or the miracles of Dr. Faustus, things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.
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I saw the Cloud, though I did not foresee the Storm.
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Pleasure is a thief to business.
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And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.
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For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
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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.
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What are the sorrows of other men to us, and what their joy?
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Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.
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