Stephen Grellet

• "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."
  • also sometimes rendered as "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
  • This quote is often attributed to another more famous Quaker, William Penn.

• "If I can anyway contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain."

• "I was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be an awful voice proclaiming the words, 'Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!' It reached my very soul— my whole man shook— it brought me like Saul to the ground. The great depravity and sinfulness of my heart were set before me, and the gulf of everlasting destruction to which I was verging. I was made to bitterly cry out, 'If there is no God— doubtless there is a hell.' I found myself in the midst of it.
  • On his inspiration while walking alone the fields of Long Island, to take up the reading of No Cross, No Crown by William Penn while still learning English, after having set it aside upon realizing it was a religious book.