William Penn Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by William Penn with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
Source identified1
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“The great business of man's life, is to answer the end for which he lives;”
Meaning & context
Penn frames a meaningful life in explicitly Christian terms: a person’s central task is to live toward the religious purpose for which Penn believes human life was given.
Source details
No Cross, No Crown, Preface, Project Gutenberg #44895. Penn opens by saying that the great business of life is to answer the end for which one lives, immediately defining that end as glorifying God and saving one’s soul. The frozen catalog retains only the opening clause. This is explicitly Quaker Christian devotional exhortation, not a neutral or universal factual definition of life’s purpose.
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“Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst;”
Meaning & context
Penn argues that time is indispensable yet commonly spent carelessly, making attention to its use a central responsibility in the conduct of life.
Source details
Some Fruits of Solitude, Preface, reviewed against the Oxford Text Archive transcription of the licensed 1693 edition. Penn says time is what people want most but use worst and immediately frames stewardship of time in explicitly religious accountability to God, neighbour and self; it remains Quaker conduct-of-life reflection rather than productivity research.
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“The Understanding can never be convinc'd, nor properly submit, but by such Arguments, as are rational, perswasive, and sutable to its own Nature;”
Meaning & context
Penn argues that belief cannot genuinely be produced by external force; conviction must address the mind through reasons capable of answering its doubts and objections.
Source details
The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (1670), represented by the CELT / University College Cork transcription. Original-period spelling is retained. Penn is making a seventeenth-century Quaker argument against coercion in religion; the record is historical political-religious thought, not current legal advice.