William Penn

Friendship is the next Pleasure we may hope for: And where we find it not at home, or have no home to find it in, we may seek it abroad. It is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

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

The Humble, Meek, Merciful, Just, Pious and Devout Souls, are everywhere of one religion; and when Death has taken off the Mask, they will know one another, though the divers Liveries they wear here make them Strangers.

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

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

Not to be provok’d is best: But if mov’d, never correct till the Fume is spent; For every Stroke our Fury strikes, is sure to hit our selves at last.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

You get a reputation for stability if you are stable for years.

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does.

Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars.

We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official, a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges.

Do not assume anything. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not an example.