William Penn

For we put the power in the people.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

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.

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man.

Where charity keeps pace with grain, industry is blessed, but to slave to get, and keep it sordidly, is a sin against Providence, a vice in government and an injury to their neighbours.

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.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.

To be a man’s own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody’s.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

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

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.