Benjamin Franklin Quotes

"A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges."

"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one."

"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle."

"A penny saved is a penny earned."

"A small leak can sink a great ship."

"A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over."

"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse."

"Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society."

"Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing."

"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight."

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

"I believe there is one Supreme most perfect being... I believe He is pleased and delights in the happiness of those He has created; and since without virtue man can have no happiness in this world, I firmly believe He delights to see me virtuous."

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."

"Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended."

"God heals, and the doctor takes the fees."

"He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals."

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."

"I am in the prime of senility."

"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone."

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing."

"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

"At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment."

"Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices."

"A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats."

"There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government."

"Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities."

"Benjamin Franklin, 1947," Saturday Evening Post Cover, January 18, 1947 John Atherton

"But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

"Take it from Richard, poor and lame, what's begun in anger ends in shame."

"Fish and visitors smell in three days."

"Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you will be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrow's; never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today."

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

"Creditors have better memories than debtors."

"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech."

"And forasmuch as ingratitude is one of the most odious of vices, let me not be unmindful gratefully to acknowledge the favours I receive from Heaven; For all Thy innumerable benefits; For life and reason, and the use of speech, for health and joy and every pleasant hour, my Good God, I thank Thee."

"How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."

"The happy State of Matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting Foundation of Comfort and Love; the Source of all that endearing Tenderness and Affection which arises from Relation and Affinity; the grand Point of Property; the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion; and, to sum up all, the Appointment of infinite Wisdom for these great and good Purposes."

"Passion governs, and she never governs wisely."

"To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals."

"The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise"