Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.
William PennRead
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True godliness helps individuals improve their lives and the world around them rather than withdrawing from it.
The quote by William Penn suggests that genuine spirituality or 'godliness' is not about escaping the challenges of the world or rejecting lifeβs complexities. Instead, it empowers individuals to engage with the world actively and strive for improvement, both personally and in their communities, inspiring them to contribute positively to society.
Themes
GodlinessServiceImprovementWorldSpirituality
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about community service, one might quote this to inspire volunteers.
More from William Penn
All quotes βWhere thou art Obliged to speak, be sure speak the Truth: For Equivocation is half way to Lying, as Lying, the whole way to Hell.
William PennRead
Man, being made 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.
William PennRead
Do good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.
William PennRead
To be a man's own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody's.
William PennRead
Unless virtue guide us our choice must be wrong.
William PennRead
Similar quotes
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come.
William WordsworthRead
She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one story to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea.
Charles DickensRead
If I have not been exposed and am not in any danger of pursuit. But I have been exposed, I am pursued - by myself! That is a pursuer that does not readily let go.
Victor HugoRead
Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.
George Bernard ShawRead
Most of what we know about human life we know from asking people to remember the past, and as we know, hindsight is anything but 20/20. We forget vast amounts of what happens to us in life, and sometimes memory is downright creative.
Robert J. WaldingerRead
The empire of Christ the King includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.
Pope Leo XiiiRead