William Penn

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.

They have a right to censure that have a heart to help: the rest is cruelty, not justice.

It is admirable to consider how many Millions of People come into, and go out of the World, Ignorant of themselves, and of the World they have lived in.

To be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious.

Do Good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

The betrothed and accepted lover has lost the wildest charms of his maiden by her acceptance. She was heaven while he pursued her, but she cannot be heaven if she stoops to one such as he!

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Dont be content with things as they are. Dont take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations.

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

Give, even if you only have little.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.