Quotes by Benjamin Franklin

"If you'd have it done, Go: if not, Send."

"Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed."

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

"Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other."

"There is no little enemy."

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do."

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."

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

"The doors of wisdom are never shut."

"Well done is better than well said."

"I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up."

"Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."

"Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late."

"Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn."

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

"The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance."

"Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship."

"A good conscience is a continual Christmas."

"Beware the hobby that eats."

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

"Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion."

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."

"Wisdom principle 96 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 96."

"Wisdom principle 91 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 93."

"Wisdom principle 76 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 84."

"Wisdom principle 46 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 66."

"Wisdom principle 41 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 63."

"Wisdom principle 26 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 54."

"Wisdom principle 21 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 51."

"Wisdom principle 11 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 45."

"Wisdom principle 1 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 39."

"It is a steadfast truth that every season of life has its own unique blossom, if only we take care to notice."

"Time is the most impartial judge; it reveals all pretenses and rewards all patience. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

"Setting too good an example is a kind of slander seldom forgiven."

"Observe all men, thyself most."

"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards."

"To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals."

"I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first."

"A place for everything, everything in its place."

"Hunger is the best pickle."

"Wisdom principle 101 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 99."

"Wisdom principle 86 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 90."

"Wisdom principle 56 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 72."

"Wisdom principle 16 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 48."

"Wisdom principle 6 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 42."

"A life well-lived is a testament that the pursuit of truth is a lifelong endeavor."

"It is a humble truth that a dream nurtured by daily toil will inevitably outshine a wish born of idle hope — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a timeless truth that life is an unwritten ledger; each passing sunrise offers a clean and waiting page."

"If your Riches are yours, why don't you take them with you to t'other World?"

"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."

"All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world."

"Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones."

"Wisdom principle 81 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 87."

"Wisdom principle 71 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 81."

"Wisdom principle 66 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 78."

"Wisdom principle 61 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 75."

"Wisdom principle 51 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 69."

"Wisdom principle 36 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 60."

"Wisdom principle 31 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 57."

"Remember that time is money."

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of."

"Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure."

"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality."

"Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never."

"You may delay, but time will not."

"Lost time is never found again."

"Time is money."

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."

"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste."

"A penny saved is a penny earned."

"Nine men in ten are would be suicides."

"I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things."

"Half a truth is often a great lie."

"Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed."

"God works wonders now and then Behold a lawyer, an honest man."

"Fatigue is the best pillow."

"At twenty years of age the will reigns at thirty, the wit and at forty, the judgment."

"It is a timeless truth that fortitude is the quiet voice at eventide saying: i will try once more tomorrow — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"The moral compass points true only when freed from the magnetism of personal gain. This remains the cornerstone of personal mastery."

"If you'd know the value of money, go and borrow some."

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."

"The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it."

"Remember that credit is money."

"If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some."

"There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money."

"Content makes poor men rich discontent makes rich men poor."

"Genius without education is like silver in the mine."

"There never was a good war or a bad peace."

"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."

"Even peace may be purchased at too high a price."

"He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees."

"There was never a good war, or a bad peace."

"The silent observer understands that the most profound truths are found in silence."

"The universe speaks in the silent dialect of universal natural laws. This remains the cornerstone of personal mastery — an essential principle for the reflective life."

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

"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75."

"When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue."

"A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave."

"I saw few die of hunger of eating, a hundred thousand."

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

"Avarice and happiness never saw each other, how then should they become acquainted."

"It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man."

"The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself."

"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."

"Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy."

"Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness."

"Where there's Marriage without Love, there will be Love without Marriage."

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

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

"Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage."

"If you would be loved, love, and be loveable."

"The simplest truths often reveal that a grateful heart is a magnet for miracles."

"We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information."

"God helps those who help themselves."

"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God."

"The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason."

"In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it."

"To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly."

"Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day."

"Necessity never made a good bargain."

"Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day."

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

"Honesty is the best policy."

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."

"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it."

"Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out."

"The first mistake in public business is the going into it."

"Let thy Child's first Lesson be Obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt."

"Diligence is the mother of good luck."

"He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too."

"When you master your attention, you master your entire perception of reality. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"A leader does not command the wind, but sets the sails and steadies the crew — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"In the tapestry of human existence, every trial adds depth to the design. Let this simple maxim guide your daily deeds."

"Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning."

"It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."

"Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one."

"No nation was ever ruined by trade."

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

"It is a unyielding truth that the present moment is the only sanctuary where peace truly resides."

"Applause waits on success."

"Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them."

"Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them."

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"He that lives upon hope will die fasting."

"The true measure of a man is the canvas of tomorrow is painted with the actions of today."

"Write with the learned, pronounce with the vulgar."

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."

"The distance between ambition and reality is bridged solely by consistent effort. A lesson woven into the fabric of human history."

"In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires."

"Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants."

"He that can have patience can have what he will."

"It is a steadfast truth that where compassion abides, fear and resentment lose their dominion — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands."

"Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow."

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

"Drive thy Business, or it will drive thee."

"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame."

"The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing."

"Beauty and folly are old companions."

"Many foxes grow gray but few grow good."

"Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good."

"How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them."

"I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning."

"There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."

"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body."

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

"Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody."

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

"For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise."