William Penn

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man.

All Excess is ill: But Drunkenness is of the worst Sort. It spoils Health, dismounts the Mind, and unmans Men: It reveals Secrets, is Quarrelsome, Lascivious, Impudent, Dangerous and Mad. 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.

Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love. Authority is for children and servants, yet not without sweetness.

Let us then try what love can do to mend a broken world.

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.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.

People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.

In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another’s air with another’s breath, and is accountable for every moment of time and can call nothing its own, but is absolutely a tenant at will of the great Lord of heaven and earth.