William Penn

Wear none of thine own Chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.

Every stroke our fury strikes is sure to hit ourselves at last.

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

Friendship . . . is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

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.

Friends are true Twins in Soul; they Sympathize in every thing, and have the Love and Aversion. One is not happy without the other, nor can either of them be miserable alone. As if they could change Bodies, they take their turns in Pain as well as in Pleasure; relieving one another in their most adverse Conditions.What one enjoys, the other cannot Want. Like the Primitive Christians, they have all things in common, and no Property but in one another.

We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed — because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

Every man is an impossibility until he is born.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Try not. Do or do not… there is no try.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Burning logs can carry on quite a conversation! … Have you ever heard apple wood talking? It’s the most loquacious of all. You really can’t get a word in edgeways.

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.

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.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.