William Penn

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

He that lives to forever, never fears dying.

Wear none of thine own Chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.

Love grows. Lust wastes by Enjoyment, and the Reason is, that one springs from an Union of Souls, and the other from an Union of Sense.

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.

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.

The never-ending task of self improvement.

Every time I think I have reached the peak, I look up and see I still have a ways to go. But I look back and see just how far I have come.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.

We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.

Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

New arts destroy the old.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

A man’s library is a sort of harem.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them You are supreme: exercise your power. They say, That’s right: tell us what to do; and I tell them. I say Exercise our vote intelligently by voting for me. And they do. That’s democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place.