William Penn

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

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

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

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.

If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God; and to do that, thou must be ruled by him who has given to kings his grace to command themselves and their subjects, and to the people the grace to obey God and their kings.

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

In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.

A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful-while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly.

We are all alike, on the inside.

Accept your genius and say what you think.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

It’s not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means; draw it all out, and hold him to it.

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.