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Often massacred and butcher’d, and sometimes quite driven away by the Fury of the Savages, often starv’d out and famished, and either the whole Body of Planters wasted, and perishing with Cold and Want, and as often being reduc’d to Extremities, forc’d to abandon the Country in the utmost Distress, and return starving home.

— Daniel Defoe A Plan of the English Commerce (1728)

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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.

A System of Magick (1726)

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 True-Born Englishman (1701)

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

The Kentish Petition (1701)

It is never too late to be wise.

Robinson Crusoe (1719)

All Daniel Defoe quotes →

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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.