Date: 1724

"His Ignorance was a Cordial to my Soul."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"'Tis impossible to express the anxious Thoughts that rowl'd about in my Mind, and continually perplex'd me about her."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"My Thoughts had for so long time been kept as it were, waking, that almost every-thing gave me the Allarm, and this especially, so that I was very uneasie."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"I might, indeed, turn pale, for I was very much surpriz'd at first, believing that this was, as it often happens in such Cases, only a Project to drop me, and break off an Amour, which he had now carried on so long; and a thousand Thoughts whirl'd about my Head in the few Moments while I was kep...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1726

"If this be the Case, it dictates the Necessity of early Education of Children, in whom, not the Soul only but the organick Powers are, as a Lump of soft Wax, which is always ready to receive any Impression; but if harden'd, grow callous, and stubborn, and like what we call Sealing-Wax, obstinate...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"In Venus the Heat would boil the Water, and consequently the Blood in the Body, and a Set of human Bodies must be form'd that could live always in a hot Bath, and neither sweat out their Souls, or melt their Bodies."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"To see a Fool, a Fop, believe himself inspir'd, a Fellow that washes his Hands fifty times a-day, but if he would be truly cleanly, should have his Brains taken out and wash'd, his Scull Trapan'd, and plac'd with the hind-side before, that his Understanding, which Nature plac'd by Mistake, with ...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"For I cannot agree that the Soul is in the Body, as in a Prison; but rather that, like a rich Nobleman, he is pleas'd to inhabit a fine Country Seat or Palace of his own Building, where he resolves to live and enjoy himself, and does so, 'till by the Fate of things his fine Palace being over-tur...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"The Steward had no publick Notice of any Harm approaching; but for three or four Days successively he had secret strange Impulses of Dread and Terror upon his Mind that the House was beset, and was to be assaulted by a Troop of Banditti, or as we call them here, House-breakers, who would murther...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"Conscience, indeed, is a frightful Apparition itself, and I make no Question but it oftentimes haunts an oppressing Criminal into Restitution, and is a Ghost to him sleeping or waking: nor is it the least Testimony of an invisible World that there is such a Drummer as that in the Soul, that can ...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)