William Penn

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume; but a good stomach excels them all.

Amuse not thy self therefore with the numerous Opinions of the World, nor value thy self upon verbal Orthodoxy, Philosophy, or thy Skill in Tongues, or Knowledge of the Fathers; (too much the Business and Vanity of the World). But in this rejoyce, That thou knowest God, that is the Lord, who exerciseth loving Kindness, and Judgment; and Righteousness in the Earth.

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

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.

Love grows. Lust wastes by Enjoyment, and the Reason is, that one springs from an Union of Souls, and the other from an Union of Sense.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.

It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

In failing circumstances no one can be relied on to keep their integrity.

We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.

When you do the wrong thing, knowing it is wrong, you do so because you haven’t developed the habit of effectively controlling or neutralizing strong inner urges that tempt you, or because you have established the wrong habit and don’t know how to eliminate them effectively.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.