William Penn was the son of the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. Penn was a writer, early member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the English North American colony the Province of Pennsylvania. He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans. Under his direction, the city of Philadelphia was planned and developed. Philadelphia was planned out to be grid-like with its streets and be very easy to navigate, unlike London where Penn was from. The streets are named with numbers and tree names. He chose to use the names of trees for the cross streets because Pennsylvania means “Penn’s Woods”.
In 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his North American land holdings along the North Atlantic Ocean coast to Penn to pay the debts the king had owed to Penn’s father. This land included the present-day states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Penn immediately set sail and took his first step on American soil, sailing up the Delaware Bay and Delaware River, (past earlier Swedish and Dutch riverfront colonies) in New Castle in 1682. On this occasion, the colonists pledged allegiance to Penn as their new proprietor, and the first Pennsylvania General Assembly was held. Afterward, Penn journeyed further north up the Delaware River and founded Philadelphia, on the west bank. However, Penn’s Quaker government was not viewed favorably by the previous Dutch, Swedish colonists, and also earlier English settlers in what is now Delaware, but claimed for half a century by the neighboring Province of Maryland’s proprietor family, the Calverts and Lord Baltimore. (via Wikipedia)
Lets take a look at a few of the great quotes the great man:
On Love:
Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
Love is indeed Heaven upon Earth since Heaven above would not be Heaven without it For where there is not Love there is Fear But perfect Love casts out Fear. And yet we naturally fear most to offend what we most Love. What we Love, well Hear what we Love, well Trust and what we Love, well serve, ay, and suffer for too. If you love me (says our Blessed Redeemer) keep my Commandments. Why Why then hell Love us then we shall be his Friends then hell send us the Comforter then whatsoever we ask, we shall receive and then where he is we shall be also, and that for ever. Behold the Fruits of Love the Power, Vertue, Benefit and Beauty of Love Love is above all and when it prevails in us all, we shall all be Lovely, and in Love with God and one with another.
Let us try what love will do.
On Life:
The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men.
A private Life is to be preferred the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it
On Death:
The Humble, Meek, Merciful, Just, Pious and Devout Souls, are everywhere of one religion and when Death has taken off the Mask, they will know one another, though the divers Liveries they wear here make them Strangers.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas they live in one another still.
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill what never dies.
Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship.
If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free as well as pure. 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.
This is the comfort of the godly: the grave cannot hold them, and they live as soon as they die.
For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.
On Knowledge:
Knowledge is the treasure of a wise man.
Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment is the treasurer of a wise man.
On God:
God is better served in resisting a Temptation to Evil, than in many formal Prayers.
Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.
I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.
On Justice:
Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.