Quotes by William Penn

• Kings in this world should imitate God, their mercy should be above their works.
• 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.
• 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.
• Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.
• Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.
• Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
• Love grows. Lust wastes by Enjoyment, and the Reason is, that one springs from an Union of Souls, and the other from an Union of Sense.
• Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.
• He that does good for good's sake seeks neither paradise nor reward, but he is sure of both in the end.
• Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man.
• Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us.
• Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it.
• It would be far better to be of no church than to be bitter of any.
• In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.
• If thou wouldn't conquer thy weakness thou must not gratify it.
• Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.
• He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care.
• He that lives to live forever, never fears dying.
• Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.
• The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.
• We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.
• Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers.
• True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
• 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.
• To be like Christ is to be a Christian.
• To be a man's own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody's.
• Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
• O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.
• The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune.
• Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.
• Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.
• Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.
• Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
• Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.
• Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.
• Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.
• Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.
• They have a right to censure that have a heart to help.
• Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love. Authority is for children and servants, yet not without sweetness.
• 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.
• Avoid popularity; it has many snares, and no real benefit.
• Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel.
• For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.
• A good End cannot sanctify evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.
• Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.
• A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.