William Penn

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

Where charity keeps pace with grain, industry is blessed, but to slave to get, and keep it sordidly, is a sin against Providence, a vice in government and an injury to their neighbours.

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

It is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousand years?… What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

So many fail because they don’t get started – they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.

In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter

The only way to have a friend is to be one.