William Penn

A wise neuter joins with neither, but uses both as his honest interest leads him.

This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

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.

He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

To be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.

The power of daring anything their fancy suggest, as always been conceded to the painter and the poet.

It is better to walk alone, then with a crowd going in the wrong direction.

What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Exploring the mysteries of myself and the world. Sensual, powerful, wise… on my path…

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation. He is the world’s eye.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Of all God’s creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as “rank presumption”.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.