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

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
Accounts
Ought
Giving
Account

More quotes by Daniel Defoe

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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!
Daniel Defoe
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I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain, and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a ship : then fancy that, at a vast distance, I spied a sail, please myself with the hopes of it, and, after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.
Daniel Defoe
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Law is but a heathen word for power.
Daniel Defoe
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For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
Daniel Defoe
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She is always married too soon, who gets a bad husband, and she is never married too late, who gets a good one.
Daniel Defoe
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How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man!
Daniel Defoe
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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.
Daniel Defoe
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Redemption from sin is greater then redemption from affliction.
Daniel Defoe
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Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.
Daniel Defoe
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What are the sorrows of other men to us, and what their joy?
Daniel Defoe
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It happen'd one Day about Noon going towards my Boat, I was exceedingly surpriz'd with the Print of a Man's naked Foot on the Shore.
Daniel Defoe
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Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
Daniel Defoe
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No shoots, says Friday, no yet, me shoot now, me no kill me stay, give you one more laugh.
Daniel Defoe
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Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.
Daniel Defoe
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Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
Daniel Defoe
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And which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
Daniel Defoe
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He that is rich is wise.
Daniel Defoe
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All the good things of the world are no further good to us than as they are of use and of all we may heap up we enjoy only as much as we can use, and no more.
Daniel Defoe
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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.
Daniel Defoe
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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.
Daniel Defoe