William Penn

Seek not to be Rich, but Happy. The one lies in Bags, the other in Content: which Wealth can never give.

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.

Drunkenness spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans man. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad.

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.

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

This is the comfort of the godly: the grave cannot hold them, and they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

The next best thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. [Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur.]

They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.

We do not count a man’s years until he has nothing else to count.

Tear thyself from delay.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them You are supreme: exercise your power. They say, That’s right: tell us what to do; and I tell them. I say Exercise our vote intelligently by voting for me. And they do. That’s democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place.

It is at our mother’s knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest ideals, but there is seldom any money in them.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.