William Penn

Amuse not thy self therefore with the numerous Opinions of the World, nor value thy self upon verbal Orthodoxy, Philosophy, or thy Skill in Tongues, or Knowledge of the Fathers; (too much the Business and Vanity of the World). But in this rejoyce, That thou knowest God, that is the Lord, who exerciseth loving Kindness, and Judgment; and Righteousness in the Earth.

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man.

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as mortals.

They that Marry for Money cannot have the true Satisfaction of Marriage; the requisite Means being wanting.

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

If we are but sure the end is right, we are too apt to gallop over all bounds to compass it; not considering the lawful ends may be very unlawfully attained.

There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man’s title to fame.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

Preaching is the expression of moral sentiments applied to the duties of life.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

Get a black suit and just freeload, problem it’s too God damned late now even to be any of the things I never wanted to be.

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.