William Penn

It is a profitable Wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and Pains are spared, in not flattering our selves against Probabilities.

Where Example keeps pace with Authority, Power hardly fails to be obey’d.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.

Fidelity has enfranchised slaves, and adopted servants to be sons.

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any kindness I can show…let me do it now.- William Penn

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr.

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.

When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.

I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.