William Penn

It is the amends of a short and troublesome life, that doing good and suffering ill entitles man to a longer and better

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

Friends are true Twins in Soul; they Sympathize in every thing, and have the Love and Aversion. One is not happy without the other, nor can either of them be miserable alone. As if they could change Bodies, they take their turns in Pain as well as in Pleasure; relieving one another in their most adverse Conditions.What one enjoys, the other cannot Want. Like the Primitive Christians, they have all things in common, and no Property but in one another.

They must first judge themselves, that presume to censure others: And such will not be apt to overshoot the Mark. We are too ready to retaliate, rather than forgive, or gain by Love and Information. And yet we could hurt no Man that we believe loves us. Let us then try what Love will do: For if Men did once see we Love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: And he that forgives first, wins the [Laurel]. If I am even with my Enemy, the Debt is paid; but if I forgive it, I oblige him for ever.

They that Marry for Money cannot have the true Satisfaction of Marriage; the requisite Means being wanting.

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

Practice is this life, and realization is this life, and this life is revealed right here and now.

Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est (Knowledge Itself Is Power)

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.

Enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think.

Morality is suspecting other people of not being legally married.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.

What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so much we are.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure.

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.