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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
Giving
Account
Accounts
Ought

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[The Devil's] laws are easy, and his gentle sway, Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey .
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Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.
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I had dropped a good design, which I had once bent my thoughts upon, and that was to try if I could not make some of my barley into malt, and then try to brew myself some beer.
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Pleasure is a thief to business.
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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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Pride, the first peer and president of Hell.
Daniel Defoe
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Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.
Daniel Defoe
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For sudden Joys, like Griefs, confound at first.
Daniel Defoe
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I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.
Daniel Defoe
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Self-destruction is the effect of cowardice in the highest extreme.
Daniel Defoe
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Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
Daniel Defoe
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It put me upon reflecting how little repining there would be among mankind at any condition of life, if people would rather compare their condition with those that were worse, in order to be thankful, than be always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their murmurings and complaining.
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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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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I saw the Cloud, though I did not foresee the Storm.
Daniel Defoe
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And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.
Daniel Defoe
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Avery fine city the four principal streets are the fairest for breadth, and the finest built that I have ever seen in one city together? In a word,'tis the cleanest and beautifullest, and best built city in Britain, London excepted.
Daniel Defoe
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Justice is always Violence to the Party offending, for every Man is Innocent in his own Eyes.
Daniel Defoe
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Necessity makes an honest man a knave.
Daniel Defoe
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The Dutch must be understood as they really are, the Middle Persons in Trade, the Factors and Brokers of Europe... they buy to sell again, take in to send out again, and the greatest Part of their vast Commerce consists in being supply'd from All Parts of the World, that they may supply All th World Again.
Daniel Defoe