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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.

— William Penn

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God

More quotes by William Penn

They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice.

Fruits of Solitude (1682)

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.

No Cross, No Crown (1682)

He that does good for good's sake seeks neither praise nor reward, though sure of both at last.

Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims (1682)

Lest, selling that noble inheritance for a poor mess of perishing pottage, you never enter into His eternal rest.

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

All William Penn quotes →

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Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.

Basil of Caesarea

Once you accept the existence of God — however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him — then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things.

Morris West The Clowns of God (1981)

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Rabindranath Tagore Fireflies (1928)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Penn (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.