“Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts . . . I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea, and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.”

—from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe