William Penn

For we put the power in the people.

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

Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

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.

Zeal ever follows an appearance of truth, and the assured are too apt to be warm; but it is their weak side in argument; zeal being better shown against sin than persons, or their mistakes.

Drunkenness spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans man. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad.

In the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am – unbound.

There is nothing assured to mortals.

The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit.

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.

I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but torment to themselves.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Beauty rests on necessities.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?