William Penn

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.

Those who would mend the world must first mend themselves.

Sexes make no Difference; since in Souls there is none: And they are the Subjects of Friendship.

Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another’s air with another’s breath, and is accountable for every moment of time and can call nothing its own, but is absolutely a tenant at will of the great Lord of heaven and earth.

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

Women tell men things that they are not likely to find out for themselves.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes.

I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.

Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there’s been a liberating force that’s come from it.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a Man from a Beast.

Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est (Knowledge Itself Is Power)

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr.

Sometimes the place you are used to is not the place you belong.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.