William Penn

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle.

Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.

For disappointments, that come not by our own folly, they are the trials or corrections of Heaven: and it is our own fault, if they prove not our advantage.

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

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man.

Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore.

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

The poets aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.

Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and made much of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love. These are services which the weak cannot render to the strong and which the strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also a difference of sex.

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.