True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
— William Penn
Famous Quotes
You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.
Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery.
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.
No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
— William Penn
Perseverance
True religion does not draw men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.
Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature... no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.
Government seems to me to be a part of religion itself — a thing sacred in its institutions and ends.
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.