William Penn Quotes
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Disappointments that aren't a result of our own foolishness are a testing of our faith or a correction from heaven, and it is our own fault if these disappointments don't work for our own good.
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Men not living to what they know, cannot blame God, that they know no more.
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You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.
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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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Between a Man and his Wife nothing ought to rule but Love. 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.
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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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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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Though our Savior's passion is over, his compassion is not.
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Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.
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Unless virtue guide us our choice must be wrong.
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They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.
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The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.
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True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
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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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To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.
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If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him. Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.
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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 mad.
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Death cannot kill what never dies.
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A vain man is a nauseous creature: he is so full of himself that he has no room for anything else, be it never so good or deserving.
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It is admirable to consider how many millions of people come into, and go out of the world, ignorant of themselves and of the world they have lived in.
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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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Experience is a safe guide.
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I shall pass through life but once. Let me show kindness now, as I shall not pass this way again.