The Best William Penn quotes

The usefulest truths are the plainest. — William Penn

Tis the glory of a man to vail to truth; as it is the mark of a good nature to be easily entreated. — William Penn

Naked Truth needs no shift. — William Penn

Where thou art Obliged to speak, be sure speak the Truth: For Equivocation is half way to Lying, as Lying, the whole way to Hell. — William Penn

The usefullest truths are plainest; and while we keep to them, our differences cannot rise high. — William Penn

Inquiry is human; blind obedience brutal. Truth never loses by the one but often suffers by the other. — William Penn

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

Truth never lost ground by enquiry. — William Penn

Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers. — William Penn

There is a truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones. — William Penn

Let us try what love will do. — William Penn

Never marry but for love; but see that thou lov’st what is lovely. — William Penn

Perfect love casteth out fear. — William Penn

Religion is nothing else but love of God and man. — William Penn

We are too apt to love praise, but not to deserve it. — William Penn

A man in business must put up many affronts if he loves his own quiet. — William Penn

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that. — William Penn

He that lives in love lives in God. — William Penn

Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it. — William Penn

Love grows, lust wastes by enjoyment. — William Penn

Let us then try what Love will do: For if Men do once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. — William Penn

Let us then try what love can do to mend a broken world. — William Penn

Love labor: for if thou dost not want it for food, thou mayest for physic. It is wholesome for thy body and good for thy mind. — William Penn

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. — William Penn

Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel. — William Penn

It is the difference betwixt lust and love that this is fixed, that volatile. Love grows, lust wastes by enjoyment. — William Penn

Between a Man and his Wife nothing ought to rule but Love. Authority is for Children and Servants; yet not without Sweetness. — William Penn

Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die. — William Penn

Though our Savior’s passion is over, his compassion is not. — William Penn

To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom. — William Penn

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

It is profitable wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and pains are spared in not flattering ourselves against probabilities. — William Penn

Silence is Wisdom where Speaking is Folly. — William Penn

The Country is both the Philosopher’s Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God. — William Penn

And he that 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. — William Penn

We are inclined to call things by the wrong names. We call prosperity ‘happiness’, and adversity ‘misery’ eventhough adversity is the school of wisdom and often the way to eternal happiness. — William Penn

No religion is better than an unnatural one. — William Penn

Be sure that religion cannot be right that a man is the worse for having. — William Penn

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

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness. — William Penn

Government seems to me to be a part of religion itself–a thing sacred in its institutions and ends. — William Penn

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. — 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

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. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

It would be far better to be of no church than to be bitter of any. — William Penn

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any kindness I can show…let me do it now. — William Penn

I expect to pass through this life but once. Therefore, if there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do for another human being, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again. — William Penn

The adventure of the Christian life begins when we dare to do what we would never tackle without Christ. — William Penn

The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends. — William Penn

Nothing but a good life can fit men for a better one hereafter. — William Penn

He that lives to live forever, never fears dying. — William Penn

It is the amends of a short and troublesome life, that doing good and suffering ill entitles man to a longer and better. — William Penn

Religion itself is nothing else but Love to God and Man. He that lives in Love lives in God, says the Beloved Disciple: And to be sure a Man can live no where better. — William Penn

Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it. — William Penn

It is a cruel folly to offer up to ostentation so many lives of creatures, as to make up the state of our treats. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

In the rush and noise of life, as you have intervals, step home within yourselves and be still. Wait upon God, and feel His good presence; this will carry you evenly through your day’s business. — William Penn

A private Life is to be preferrd; the Honour and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it. — William Penn

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals. — William Penn

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people. — William Penn

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations. — William Penn

Covetousness is the greatest of monsters, as well as the root of all evil. — William Penn

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

All Excess is ill: But Drunkenness is of the worst Sort. — William Penn

Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason. — William Penn

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

Never give out while there is hope; but hope not beyond reason, for that shows more desire than judgement. — 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

If thou wouldst be happy, bring thy mind to thy condition, and have an indifferency for more than what is sufficient. — William Penn

Children, Fear God; that is to say, have an holy awe upon your minds to avoid that which is evil, and a strict care to embrace and do that which is good. — William Penn

Passion is a sort of fever in the mind, which ever leaves us weaker than it found us. — William Penn

You are Englishmen; mind your privileges, give not away your right. — William Penn

What man in his right mind would conspire his own hurt? Men are beside themselves when they transgress against their convictions. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

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. — William Penn

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. — William Penn

Advice to his children) 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. — William Penn

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. — William Penn