William Penn

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

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.

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.

People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with the bad.

Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.

That man is idle who can do something better.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Life gives nothing to man without labor.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

If we want maturity, we have to be mature. If we want a nation that feels hopeful, then we have to speak in hopeful terms… We have to model what we want.

Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.