Date: 1722

"But my own Distresses silenc'd all these Reflections, and the prospect of my own Starving, which grew every Day more frightful to me, harden'd my Heart by degrees."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"The thoughts of this Booty put out all the thoughts of the first, and the Reflections I had made wore quickly off; Poverty, harden'd my Heart, and my own Necessities made me regardless of any thing."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"In short, I began to think, and to think indeed is one real Advance from Hell to Heaven; all that harden'd State and Temper of Soul, which I said so much of before, is but a Deprivation of Thought; he that is restor'd to his Thinking, is restor'd to himself."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"Now I reproach'd myself with the many hints I had had, as I have mention'd above, from my own Reason, from the Sense of my good Circumstances, and of the many Dangers I had escap'd to leave off while I was well, and how I had withstood them all, and hardened my Thoughts against all Fear."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"And this is the Cause why many times Men, as well as Women, and Men of the greatest, and best Qualities other ways, yet have found themselves weak in this Part, and have not been able to bear the Weight of a secret Joy, or of a secret Sorrow; but have been oblig'd to disclose it, even for the me...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1723

"Your Letter has so ruffled my whole Interior, that I know not how to write common Sense."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1723, 1725

"Reflection was unhing'd; the noble Seat of Memory fill'd with Chimera's and disjointed Notions; wild and confus'd Ideas whirl'd in his distracted Brain; and all the Man, except the Form, was changed."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1724

"As for the poor Girl herself, she was ever before my Eyes; I saw her by-Night, and by-Day; she haunted my Imagination, if she did not haunt the House; my Fancy show'd her me in a hundred Shapes and Postures; sleeping or waking, she was with me."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"It is for this Reason, that I have so largely set down the Particulars of the Caresses I was treated with by the Jeweller, and also by this Prince; not to make the Story an Incentive to the Vice, which I am now such a sorrowful Penitent for being guilty of, God forbid any shou'd make so vile a U...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"[S]o with my Eyes open, and with my Conscience, as I may say, awake, I sinn'd, knowing it to be a Sin, but having no Power to resist; when this had thus made a Hole in my Heart, and I was come to such a height, as to transgress against the Light of my own Conscience, I was then fit for any Wicke...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)