{"author":"Daniel Defoe","author_id":"Daniel+Defoe","total_quotes":17,"quotes":[{"text":"All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["spring","want","thankfulness "],"id":17284,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"...I should always find, the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life...","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["contentment","philosophy-of-life"],"id":61373,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"...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,...","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["attitude"],"id":170195,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"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.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["lion","better","sheep "],"id":196699,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"Middle age is youth without its levity  And age without decay.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["aging","old","age"],"id":205728,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["equality","feminism"],"id":211006,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"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.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["women","thought","world "],"id":234910,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"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.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["crown","emptiness","good","justice","kings","monarchs","nothing","purpose","subjects","titles"],"id":278236,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"I had great Reason to consider it as a Determination of Heaven, that in this desolate Place, and in this desolate Manner I should end my life; the Tears would run plentifully down my Face when I made these Reflections, and sometimes I would expostulate with myself, Why Providence should thus compleately ruine its Creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable, so without Help abandon'd, so entirely depress'd, that it could be hardly rational to be thankful for such a Life.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["depression","god","heaven","injustice","life","religion"],"id":298202,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"},{"text":"In the first place , I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here. I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life. I had nothing to covet; for I had all that I was now capable of enjoying.","author":"Daniel Defoe","tags":["enjoying","lust","pride","wickedness"],"id":302448,"author_id":"Daniel+Defoe"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":17,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}