William Penn

The Humble, Meek, Merciful, Just, Pious and Devout Souls, are everywhere of one religion; and when Death has taken off the Mask, they will know one another, though the divers Liveries they wear here make them Strangers.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, the other shows he is but a copy or a collection at most.

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.

Friendship is the next Pleasure we may hope for: And where we find it not at home, or have no home to find it in, we may seek it abroad. It is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

He that lives to forever, never fears dying.

Every stroke our fury strikes is sure to hit ourselves at last.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

Every mind has a choice between truth and repose. Take which you please you can never have both.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.

The artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like the bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

We love and lose in China, we weep on England’s moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we’re the same.

Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

You cannot run faster than a bullet.