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
Topics: Praise
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
Topics: Country
To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.
—William Penn
Topics: Innocence, Virtue, Virtues
To be like Christ is to be a Christian.
—William Penn
Topics: Christianity, Christians
Death is only an horizon, and an horizon is only the limit of our sight. Open our eyes to see more clearly … .
—William Penn
Topics: Death
There is truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones.
—William Penn
Silence is Wisdom where Speaking is Folly.
—William Penn
Topics: Silence
In all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or an unjust interest.
—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 mad. He that is drunk is not a man, because he is void of reason that distinguishes a man from a beast.
—William Penn
Topics: Health, Drunkenness
Five things are requisite to a good officer—ability, clean hands, despatch, patience, and impartiality.
—William Penn
Hasty resolutions are of the nature of vows, and to be equally avoided.
—William Penn
Topics: Promises
The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.
—William Penn
Topics: Ambition, Fortune
It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable.
—William Penn
Topics: Nature
Nothing but a good life here can fit men for a better one hereafter.
—William Penn
Topics: Life
When thou art obliged to speak, be sure to speak the truth; for equivocation is half way to lying, and lying is the whole way to hell.
—William Penn
Topics: Lying
To hazard much to get much has more of avarice than wisdom.
—William Penn
Topics: Greed
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
Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.
—William Penn
Topics: Promises
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
Topics: Truth, Temper, Arguments, Anger
Religion is the fear and love of God; its demonstration is good works; and faith is the root of both, for without faith we cannot please God; nor can we fear and love what we do not believe.
—William Penn
Topics: Religion
A private Life is to be preferrd; the Honour and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it.
—William Penn
To be a man’s own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody’s.
—William Penn
Topics: Vanity, Fools
All we have is the Almighty’s, and shall not God have his own when he calls for it?
—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
It is the difference betwixt lust and love, that this is fixed, that volatile. Love grows, lust wastes, by enjoyment; and the reason is, that one springs from a union of souls, and the other springs from a union of sense.
—William Penn
Topics: Enjoyment
A wise neuter joins with neither, but uses both as his honest interest leads him.
—William Penn
If a civil word or two will render a man happy, he must be a wretch, indeed, who will not give them to him.—Such a disposition is like lighting another man’s candle by one’s own, which loses none of its brilliancy by what the other gains.
—William Penn
No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
—William Penn
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties, Discipline, Life, Pain
It is most reasonable men should value that benefit, which is most durable. Now tongues shall cease, and prophecy fail, and faith shall be consummated in sight, and hope in enjoyment; but love remains.
—William Penn
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.
—William Penn
Topics: Fathers, Family, Father, Wisdom, Economy
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Richard Branson British Entrepreneur
- Mary Kay Ash American Entrepreneur
- Seth Godin American Entrepreneur
- Walt Disney American Entrepreneur
- Herb Kelleher American Entrepreneur
- Robert Ringer American Entrepreneur
- William C. Durant American Industrialist
- Lady Bird Johnson First Lady of the United States
- Martha Stewart American Businesswoman
- Russell Simmons American Music Promoter
Leave a Reply