C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
William Penn
A man, like a watch, is to be valued for his manner of going.
A wise neuter joins with neither, but uses both, as his honest interest leads him.
Above all things endeavor to breed them up in the love of virtue, and that holy plain way of it which we have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my family. I had rather they were homely than finely bred as to outward behavior; yet I love sweetness mixed with gravity, and cheerfulness tempered with sobriety.
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 bad.
And he that lives to live forever never fears dying.
And yet we are very apt to be full of ourselves, instead of Him that made what we so much value, and but for whom we can have no reason to value ourselves. For we have nothing that we can call our own, no, not ourselves; for we are all but tenants, and at will too, of the great Lord of ourselves, and the rest of this great farm, the world that we live upon.
Avoid popularity, it has many snares, and no real benefit.
Be rather bountiful, than expensive.
Be sure that religion cannot be right that a man is the worse for having.
Believe nothing against another, but on good authority; nor report what may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to another to conceal it.
Content not thyself that thou art virtuous in the general; for one link being wanting, the chain is defective.
Do what good thou canst unknown; and be not vain of what ought rather to be felt than seen.
Excess in apparel is another costly folly. The very trimming of the vain world would clothe all the naked one.
False-dealing travels a short road, and surely detected.
Five things are requisite to a good officer—ability, clean hands, despatch, patience, and impartiality.
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.
God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.
Hasty resolutions are of the nature of vows; and to be equally avoided.
He that does good for good’s sake seeks neither praise nor reward, though sure of both at last.
He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he that has a great deal left him does to his father’s care.
I have sometimes thought that people are, in a sort, happy, that nothing can put out of countenance with themselves, though they neither have nor merit other people’s.
I remember a passage of one of Queen Elizabeth’s great men, as advice to his friend. “The advantage,” says he, “I had upon others at court was that I always spoke as I thought; which being not believed by them, I both preserved a good conscience, and suffered no damage from that freedom”; which, as it shows the vice to be older than our times, so does it that gallant man’s integrity to be the best way of avoiding it.
If thou wouldst conquer thy weakness, thou must never gratify it. No man is compelled to evil: his consent only makes it his. It is no sin to be tempted, but to be overcome.
If we would amend the world we should mend ourselves; and teach our children to be, not what we are, but what they should be.
Interest has the security, though not the virtue of a principle. As the world goes, it is the surest side; for men daily leave both relations and religion to follow it.
Is it reasonable to take it ill, that anybody desires of us that which is their own? All we have is the Almighty’s; and shall not God have His own when He calls for it?
It is a coal from God’s altar must kindle our fire; and without fire, true fire, no acceptable sacrifice.
It is he who is in the wrong who first gets angry.
It is the amends of a short and troublesome life, that doing good and suffering ill entitles man to one longer and better.
It were better to be of no church than to be bitter for any.
It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable. Let us begin where she begins, go her pace, and close always where she ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists.
Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property; to which may be added, and obedience is the premium which we pay for it.
Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast. Yet it must be confessed that wit gives an edge to sense, and recommends it extremely.
Levity of behavior, always a weakness, is far more unbecoming in a woman than a man.
Love is indeed heaven upon earth; since heaven above would not be heaven without it; for where there is not love, there is fear; but, “Perfect love casteth out fear.” And yet we naturally fear most to offend what we most love.
Love labor; for if thou dost not want it for food, thou mayst for physic.
Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.
Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.
Next to God, thy parents.
No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
Not to be provoked is best; but if moved, never correct till the fume is spent; for every stroke our fury strikes is sure to hit ourselves at last.
Passion may not unfitly be termed the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.
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.
Sense shines with a double lustre when it is set in humility. An able and yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.
Show is not substance; realities govern wise men.
Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.
Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves; and perhaps that is the reason of it.
That plenty should produce either covetousness or prodigality is a perversion of providence; and yet the generality of men are the worse for their riches.
The difference between passion and love is that this is fixed, that volatile. Love grows, passion wastes, by enjoyment; and the reason is that one springs from a union of souls, and the other springs from a union of sense.
The only fountain in the wilderness of life, where man drinks of water totally unmixed with bitterness, is that which gushes for him in the calm and shady recess of domestic life.
The smaller the drink, the clearer the head, and the cooler the blood; which are great benefits in temper and business.
The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.
The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.
The usefullest truths are plainest; and while we keep to them, our differences cannot rise high.
The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy.
There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones.
There is nothing of which we are apt to be so lavish as of time, and about which we ought to be more solicitous, since without it we can do nothing in this world. Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst.
To be a man’s own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody’s.
To be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious.
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.
True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. It is a great virtue; it covers folly, keeps secrets, avoids disputes, and prevents sin.
We are too careless of posterity; not considering that as they are, so the next generation will be.
Were the superfluities of a nation valued, and made a perpetual tax or benevolence, there would be more alms-houses than poor, schools than scholars, and enough to spare for government besides.
What man in his right mind would conspire his own hurt? Men are beside themselves when they transgress against their convictions.
When thou are obliged to speak, be sure to speak the truth; for equivocation is half-way to lying, and lying is the whole way to hell.
Whoever is right, the persecutor must be wrong.