It is a severe rebuke upon us, that God makes us so many allowances, and we make so few to our neighbour.

For as men in battle are continually in the way of shot, so we, in this world, are ever within the reach of Temptation.

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

Beasts act by sense, man should by reason; else he is a greater beast than ever God made: And the proverb is verified, the corruption of the best things is the worst and most offensive.

Man being made a reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being, than the right direction and employment of his thoughts; since upon this depends both his usefulness to the public, and his own present and future benefit in all respects.

Nothing more shows the low condition Man is fallen into, than the unsuitable notion we must have of God, by the ways we take to please him.

But tho' God has replenished this world with abundance of good things for man's life and comfort, yet they are all but imperfect goods. He only is the perfect good to whom they point. But alas! Men cannot see him for them; tho' they should always see him in them.

No religion is better than an unnatural one.

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

For though Death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that is recompence enough for suffering of it.

Jealousy is a kind of civil war in the soul, where judgment and imagination are at perpetual jars. This civil dissension in the mind, like that of the body politic, commits great disorders, and lays all waste. Nothing stands safe in its way; Nature, interest, religion, must yield to its fury. It violates contracts, dissolves society, breaks wedlock, betrays friends and neighbours. No body is good, and every one is either doing or designing them a mischief. It has a venom that more or less rankles wherever it bites: And as it reports fancies or facts, so it disturbs its own house as often as other folks.

A reasonable opinion must ever be in danger where Reason is not judge.

He that lives in love lives in God.

Of what benefit is it to say our prayers regularly, go to church, receive the sacraments, and maybe go to confessions too; ay, feast the priest, and give alms to the poor, and yet lie, swear, curse, be drunk, covetous, unclean, proud, revengeful, vain and idle at the same time?

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

Charity is ... a universal remedy against discord, and an holy cement for mankind.

Just and noble minds rejoice in other men's success.

Where charity keeps pace with gain, industry is blessed.

People are more afraid of the laws of Man than of God, because their punishment seems to be nearest.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil, than in many formal prayers.

A vain man is a nauseous creature: he is so full of himself that he has no room for anything else, be it never so good or deserving.

A jealous man only sees his own spectrum when he looks upon other men, and gives his character in theirs.

He that covets can no more be a moral man than he that steals, since he does so in his mind.

Nor can we expect to be heard of God in our prayers, that turn the deaf ear to the petitions of the distressed among out fellow creatures.

Truth never lost ground by enquiry.

They that soar too high, often fall hard.

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.

Death is no more than a turning of us over from Time to Eternity.

Generally, money lies nearest them that are nearest their graves.

Men may tire themselves in a labyrinth of search, and talk of God: But if we would know him indeed, it must be from the impressions we receive of him; and the softer our hearts are, the deeper and livelier those will be upon us.

If men would once consider one another reasonably, they would either reconcile their differences, or more amicably maintain them.

Reason, like the Sun, is common to all; and 'tis for want of examining all by the same light and measure, that we are not all of the same mind: For all have it to that end, though not all do use it so.

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.

Less judgment than wit, is more sail than ballast.

WILLIAM PENN, Fruits of Solitude

Believe nothing against another but on good authority; nor report what may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to others to conceal it.

WILLIAM PENN, "Reflections and Maxims", A Collection of the Works of William Penn

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

WILLIAM PENN, Fruits of Solitude

I prefer the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked.

WILLIAM PENN, attributed, "William Penn and His Philanthropy", The Ladies' Repository, Volume 17

Passion may not unfitly be termed the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

WILLIAM PENN, Fruits of Solitude

Avoid popularity; it has many snares, and no real benefit to thyself; and uncertainty to others.

WILLIAM PENN, Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life

A wise neuter joins with neither, but uses both, as his honest interest leads him.

WILLIAM PENN, Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life

Lend not beyond thy ability, nor refuse to lend out of thy ability; especially when it will help others more than it can hurt thee. If thy debtor be honest and capable, thou hast thy money again, if not with increase, with praise. If he prove insolvent, do not ruin him to get that which it will not ruin thee to lose; for thou art but a steward, and another is they Owner, Master, and Judge.

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