William Penn

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.

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people.

If there be three distinct and separate Persons, then three distinct and separate Substances. . . . And since the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God . . . then unless the Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct Nothings, they must be three distinct Substances, and consequently three distinct Gods.

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

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.

A day for toil, an hour for sport, but for a friend is life too short.

It is proved…that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

For disappointments, that come not by our own folly, they are the trials or corrections of Heaven: and it is our own fault, if they prove not our advantage.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

Knowledge exists to be imparted.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.