William Penn

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise.

It is a profitable Wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and Pains are spared, in not flattering our selves against Probabilities.

Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.

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.

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any kindness I can show…let me do it now.- William Penn

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

What drives me to be who I am, to do all that I do, is not what words will be engraved for my epitaph. What drives me to be who I am, to do what I do, is not vanity, is not for adulation in the eyes of others. What drives me is my own desire to be better; to be happy. When I am dead and buried, the words above will not bring me back to life, I choose to live out my epitaph, and not just for it to be a collection of words someone has chosen to define me.

Pity the man who has a character to support – it is worse than a large family – he is silent poor indeed.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

He who is upright in his way of life and free from sin.

The good rain, like a bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.

The world is upheld by the veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.