William Penn Quotes

159 Sourced Quotes

Children had rather be making of Tools and Instruments of Play; Shaping, Drawing, Framing, and Building, &c. than getting some Rules of Propriety of Speech by Heart: And those also would follow with more Judgment, and less Trouble and Time.

William Penn
Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

William Penn
Friends are true Twins in Soul; they Sympathize in every thing, and have the Love and Aversion. One is not happy without the other, nor can either of them be miserable alone. As if they could change Bodies, they take their turns in Pain as well as in Pleasure; relieving one another in their most adverse Conditions. What one enjoys, the other cannot Want. Like the Primitive Christians, they have all things in common, and no Property but in one another.

William Penn
In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.

William Penn
Always remember to bound thy thoughts to the present occasion.

William Penn
If thou rise with an Appetite, thou art sure never to sit down without one.

William Penn
Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another's air with another's breath, and is accountable for every moment of time and can call nothing its own, but is absolutely a tenant at will of the great Lord of heaven and earth.

William Penn
Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

William Penn
To be a man's own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's.

William Penn
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.

William Penn
Fidelity has enfranchised slaves, and adopted servants to be sons

William Penn
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.

William Penn
We are apt to be very pert at censuring others, where we will not endure advice.

William Penn
The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

William Penn
He that has more Knowledge than Judgment, is made for another Man's use more than his own.

William Penn
If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God; and to do that, thou must be ruled by him who has given to kings his grace to command themselves and their subjects, and to the people the grace to obey God and their kings.

William Penn
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.

William Penn
Frugality is good if liberality be joined with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last is bestowing them to the benefit of others that need. The first without the last begets covetousness; the last without the first begets prodigality.

William Penn
If we would mend the World, we should mend Ourselves; and teach our Children to be, not what we are, but what they should be.

William Penn
To be furious in religion, is to be irreligiously religious.

William Penn
A good End cannot sanctifie evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it. Some Folks think they may Scold, Rail, Hate, Rob and Kill too; so it be but for God's sake. But nothing in us unlike him, can please him.

William Penn
Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

William Penn
The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs,
which are brief and pithy.

William Penn
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.

William Penn
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.

William Penn
He that criticizes out of Passion raises Revenge sooner than Repentance.

William Penn
They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice.

William Penn
There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom. Friendship loves a free Air, and will not be penned up in streight and narrow Enclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too; and take nothing ill where no ill is meant; nay, where it is, 'twill easily forgive, and forget too, upon small Acknowledgments.

William Penn
Hasty resolutions are of the nature of vows, and to be equally avoided.

William Penn
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill, what never dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship. If Absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; They live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is Omnipresent. In this Divine Glass, they see Face to Face; and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure. This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal.

William Penn