William Penn

To be like Christ is to be a Christian.

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

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.

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.

Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.

To be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious.

Some of your grief you have cured, and lived to survive; but what torments of pain have you endured that haven’t as yet arrived.

Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

Words are alive; cut them and they bleed.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

Believe nothing against another but on good authority; and never report what may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to some other to conceal it.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

You are alive, so be fully alive.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.