William Penn

If men be good, government cannot be bad.

Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature . . . no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.

Kings in this should imitate God, their mercy should be above their works.

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as mortals.

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

To be a man’s own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody’s.

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Do what good thou canst unknown, and be not vain of what ought rather to be felt than seen.

My emancipation don’t fit your equation.

All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.