William Penn

A private Life is to be preferred; the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

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

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

The Country is both the Philosopher’s Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

God’s first creature, which was light.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

Tis a superstition to insist on a special diet. All is made at last of the same chemical atoms.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”

We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves…

We hate the kindness which we understand.

He that has more knowledge than judgment, is made for another man’s use more than his own.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.