William Penn

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, — for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, — for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.

There can be no friendship where there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be fenced up in straight and narrow enclosures.

They must first judge themselves, that presume to censure others: And such will not be apt to overshoot the Mark. We are too ready to retaliate, rather than forgive, or gain by Love and Information. And yet we could hurt no Man that we believe loves us. Let us then try what Love will do: For if Men did once see we Love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: And he that forgives first, wins the [Laurel]. If I am even with my Enemy, the Debt is paid; but if I forgive it, I oblige him for ever.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

As Love ought to bring them together, so it is the best Way to keep them well together.

Excess in Apparel is another costly Folly. The very Trimming of the vain World would cloath all the naked one.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

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

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.

People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

It is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousand years?… What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.

There is a crack in everything God has made.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.