William Penn
(1644 - 1718) U.K. - U.S.A.
Quaker
Born at Tower Hill, London, son of Admiral sir William Penn, he joined the Quakers in 1667. In 1681 he obtained a grant of land in America, in settlement of a debt owed by the king to his father, on which he established the colony of Pennsylvania, as a refuge for the persecuted Quakers.
He founded Philadelphia, "The city of brotherly love", as he was a great believer in friendship.
He wrote in his Fruits of Solitude:
"A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably
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In short, choose a friend as thou dost a wife, till death separate you
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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
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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."
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