Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe, born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy, most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is noted for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Samuel Richardson, and is among the founders of the English novel. He was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than five hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on various topics, including politics, crime,...
adventure men hands
It is men of desperate fortunes on the one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who go abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road.
marriage husband too-late
She is always married too soon, who gets a bad husband, and she is never married too late, who gets a good one.
lying philosophy judging
Reason, it is true, is DICTATOR in the Society of Mankind; from her there ought to lie no Appeal; But here we want a Pope in our Philosophy, to be the infallible Judge of what is or is not Reason.
womb wit
Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
members feds wit
Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed, Will starve the Members, and distract the Head.
character dark men
No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.
christian running horse
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 runs into matrimony, as a horse rushes into 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; and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize.
christian country ethos
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.
two literature dutch
An Englishman will fairly drink as much As will maintain two families of Dutch.
wise men fool
I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth ... that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.
judging saws too-late
This grieved me heartily ; and now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.
mean doors evil
...in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into...
want states enjoy
Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it.
eye evil anxiety
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 : ...