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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 the most hidden Parts of the World to lye buried there, and remain unprofitable, till they come to be melted down again in the General Conflagration.

— Daniel Defoe

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Source: The History of the Principal Discoveries and Improvements in the Several Arts and Sciences: Particularly the Great Branches of Commerce, Navigation, and Plantation, in all parts of the known world (1727), p. 6
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All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.

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Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.

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What is one man's safety is another man's destruction.

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Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities.

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

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

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We loved the doctrine for the teacher's sake.

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

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More quotes by Daniel Defoe

The best of men cannot suspend their fate:
The good die early, and the bad die late.

Character of the Late Dr. S. Annesley (1715)

'Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are.

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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.

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

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It is never too late to be wise.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Daniel Defoe (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.