Have a care therefore where there is more sail than ballast.

Penn’s metaphor contrasts outward power or display (“sail”) with inward steadiness and moral substance (“ballast”). A ship can move fast with a large sail, but without ballast it becomes unstable and liable to capsize; likewise, a person or community with great ambition, eloquence, wealth, or authority but little judgment, humility, or self-control is in danger. The line cautions against disproportion—growth without grounding, confidence without character, rhetoric without wisdom. It also implies that true strength is not mere momentum but stability: the capacity to withstand gusts of circumstance. In Quaker terms, it is a call to cultivate inner weight—integrity and restraint—so that outward gifts do not become liabilities.