William Penn

As Love ought to bring them together, so it is the best Way to keep them well together.

Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

It were endless to dispute upon everything that is disputable.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, the other shows he is but a copy or a collection at most.

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.

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.

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

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

Listening to both sides does not necessarily bring about a correct judgment.

Sorrow is the rust of the soul and activity will cleanse and brighten it.

It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

Nothing astonishes people so much as common sense and plain dealing.

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.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.