William Penn

In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a Man from a Beast.

Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature . . . no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.

Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

God is better served in resisting a Temptation to Evil, than in many formal Prayers.

Only trust theyself, and another shall noet betray thee

Let us try what love will do.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

Sexes make no Difference; since in Souls there is none: And they are the Subjects of Friendship.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be… those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes… those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober — minded men.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.