Politics & Power Quote by Daniel Defoe

“Pride the first peer and president of hell” lands like a punchy bit of newsroom theology: a headline compressed into eight words. Defoe, a journalist who wrote with the moral impatience of a man forever watching institutions lie about themselves, turns pride into a political office. Not just a sin, but an administrator. “First peer” borrows the language of aristocratic rank; “president” adds the modern scent of bureaucracy and self-importance. Hell, in this framing, isn’t chaos. It’s a well-run regime, and pride is the official who keeps the paperwork moving.

The intent is diagnostic. Defoe isn’t warning against confidence; he’s targeting that special English vice where status becomes virtue and self-regard masquerades as principle. Pride is “first” because it precedes and legitimizes the rest: greed, cruelty, hypocrisy. Once the ego is enthroned, every other impulse can be argued into righteousness. The line’s grim joke is that damnation doesn’t begin with scandal; it begins with a coronation.

Context matters: Defoe lived in a Britain churning with class anxiety, religious argument, and emerging party politics. A journalist in that world is trained to see how public language disguises private appetites. By casting pride as hell’s “president,” Defoe hints that the most dangerous devils aren’t horned monsters; they’re respectable leaders, fluent in titles, sure they deserve them. The subtext is democratic and suspicious: whenever someone insists on their own greatness, check the temperature of the room. That’s how hell gets organized.