William Penn

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.

I will never do this, says one, yet does it: I am resolved to do this, says another; but flags upon second Thoughts: Or does it, tho’ awkwardly, for his Word’s sake: As if it were worse to break his Word, than to do amiss in keeping it.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, the other shows he is but a copy or a collection at most.

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

Haste makes Work which Caution prevents.

A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.

Men have become the tools of their trade.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth.

Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.

The amount of people in this world who are here to do something great far outweighs the rest.

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think – yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.