William Penn Quotes
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I shall pass through life but once. Let me show kindness now, as I shall not pass this way again.
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For nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces the conscience but what comes from a living conscience
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To have religion upon authority, and not upon conviction, is like a finger-watch, to be set forwards or backwards, as he pleases that has it in keeping.
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Religion is the fear of God, and its demonstration good works; and faith is the root of both: For without faith we cannot please God; nor can we fear what we do not believe.
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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 never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn.
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No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
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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.
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What man in his right mind would conspire his own hurt? Men are beside themselves when they transgress against their convictions.
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Experience is a safe guide.
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It is safer to learn than teach; and who conceals his opinion has nothing to answer for.
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Dislike what deserves it, but never hate: for that is of the nature of malice; which is almost ever to persons, not things, and is one of the blackest qualities sin begets in the soul. Dislike what deserves it, but never hate: for that is of the nature of malice; which is almost ever to persons, not things, and is one of the blackest qualities sin begets in the soul.
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For as men in battle are continually in the way of shot, so we, in this world, are ever within the reach of Temptation.
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But make not more business necessary than is so; and rather lessen than augment work for thyself.
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Next to God, thy parents.
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Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one but often suffers by the other.
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The Remedy often proves worse than the Disease.
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In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.
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There is a troublesome humor some men have, that if they may not lead, they will not follow; but had rather a thing were never done, than not done their own way, tho' other ways very desirable.
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Neither despise nor oppose what thou dost not understand.
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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.
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Men not living to what they know, cannot blame God, that they know no more.
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Anything less than full justice is cruelty.
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The humble, meek, merciful, and just are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wear here make them strangers.
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Covetousness is the greatest of monsters, as well as the root of all evil.