William Penn

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.

Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress’d as those that are full of precious Drugs. They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.

A wise neuter joins with neither, but uses both as his honest interest leads him.

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

The public must and will be served.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

A man’s interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

Fearful of missing anything, he read on, filled with this anticipation which was half terror, of coming upon something which would touch him, not simply touch him but lift him and carry him away.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.