Ben Franklin

Ben Franklin Quotes

“A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“A good conscience is a continual Christmas.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“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.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“All would live long, but none would be old.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Drive thy business or it will drive thee.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“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.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Genius without education is like silver in the mine.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He that lives upon hope will die fasting.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows nor judge all he sees.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What’s a sun-dial in the shade?”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“I am in the prime of senility.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“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.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“If you wouldst live long, live well, for folly and wickedness shorten life.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“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.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Well done is better than well said.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Who is wise? He that learns from every One.
Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions.
Who is rich? He that is content.
Who is that? Nobody.”
–Benjamin Franklin

 

“You may delay, but time will not.”

–Benjamin Franklin

 

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.”

–Benjamin Franklin, ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack,’ June 1746

 

“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, from his report to the King of France on Animal Magnetism, 1784

 

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

–Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

 

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

–Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy (1789)

 

“Take it from Richard, poor and lame,
what’s begun in anger ends in shame.”

–Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

 

“Fish and visitors smell in three days.”

–Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1736

 

“To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”

–Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1737

 

“Wish not so much to live long as to live well.”

–Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1738