William Penn

If men be good, government cannot be bad.

Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress’d as those that are full of precious Drugs. They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.

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

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Moms. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people.

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, — for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, — for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.

The people are to be taken in small doses.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds. Each man seeks those of different quality from his own, and such as are good of their kind; that is, he seeks other men, and the rest.

Where God does not govern, tyrants will rule.

Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.

The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.