Daniel Defoe: Mankind

Daniel Defoe was English trader, writer and journalist. Explore interesting quotes on mankind.

Daniel Defoe: 86 quotes13 likes

“And of all plagues with which mankind are cursed,
Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.”

Pt. II, l. 299. <br class="br"> The True-Born Englishman http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm (1701)

“He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing - viz. that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequence of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches. He bade me observe it, and 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.”

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 1, Start in Life.

“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.”

An Essay upon Publick Credit (1710).

“For I cannot think that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures; and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind; with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our Houses, Cooks, and Slaves.”

The Education of Women (1719)

“I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth, to that reason which ought to guide them in such cases - viz. 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 can only make them be esteemed wise men.”

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 1, Start in Life.