Daniel Defoe

When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown. Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, The good of subjects is the end of kings.

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

For Englishmen are ne'er contented long.

Restraint from ill is freedom to the wise; But Englishmen do all restraint despise.

No panegyric needs their praise record; An Englishman ne'er wants his own good word.

In their religion they are so uneven, That each man goes his own byway to heaven.

Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who.

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes Lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes; Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money makes a peer.

That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman.

The royal refugee our breed restores With foreign courtiers and with foreign whores, And carefully repeopled us again, Throughout his lazy, long, lascivious reign.

From this amphibious ill-born mob began That vain, ill-natured thing, an Englishman.

Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.

The grand contention's plainly to be seen, To get some men put out, and some put in.

Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them, but as they are or are not distinguished by education.

Self-destruction is the effect of cowardice in the highest extreme.

The art of war, which I take to be the highest perfection of human knowledge.

To know Trade then is to know the World: And I may farther observe, That if any one Nation could govern Trade, that Nation would govern the World; could it give Laws to the Commerce, it would give Laws to the People, and the whole World …

I cannot believe that God ever design'd the Riches of the World to be useless to the World; that the Gold, the Silver, the Diamonds, and other Species of such Immense Worth and Value, was ever created in the Bowels of the Mountains, and …

Like Eden Fruitful, like Arabia Gay, So blest, they scarcely know for what to pray; England in native Glory ever springs; A Country fitted for the View of Kings.

A true-bred merchant is the best gentleman in the nation.

In trouble to be troubled Is to have your trouble doubled.

Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could.

Wise men affirm it is the English way Never to grumble till they come to pay.

It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.