Famous Benjamin Franklin Quotations

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"He that lives upon hope will die fasting."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that can have patience can have what he will."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is."
by 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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man."
by Benjamin Franklin
"It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Necessity never made a good bargain."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards."
by Benjamin Franklin
"The first mistake in public business is the going into it."
by Benjamin Franklin
"The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse."
by Benjamin Franklin
"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing."
by Benjamin Franklin
"The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
by Benjamin Franklin
"The discontented man finds no easy chair."
by Benjamin Franklin
"There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."
by Benjamin Franklin
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
by Benjamin Franklin
"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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest."
by Benjamin Franklin
"To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals."
by Benjamin Franklin
"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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults in the first."
by Benjamin Franklin
"When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage."
by Benjamin Franklin
"You may delay, but time will not."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Applause waits on success."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Diligence is the mother of good luck."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."
by Benjamin Franklin
"If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality."
by Benjamin Franklin
"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Rather go to bed with out dinner than to rise in debt."
by 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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Remember that credit is money."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Many foxes grow gray but few grow good."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it."
by Benjamin Franklin
"One today is worth two tomorrows."
by Benjamin Franklin
"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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."
by Benjamin Franklin
"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lose; for the want of a shoe the horse was lose; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Drive thy business or it will drive thee."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Admiration is the daughter of ignorance."
by 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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that won't be counseled can't be helped."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that speaks much, is much mistaken."
by Benjamin Franklin
"He that rises late must trot all day."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it."
by Benjamin Franklin
"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."
by Benjamin Franklin
"It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out."
by Benjamin Franklin
"In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes."
by Benjamin Franklin
"People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first."
by David H. Comins
"All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move."
by Benjamin Franklin
"'Tis a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own"
by Benjamin Franklin
"A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two different things."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough."
by Quoted by Benjamin Franklin
"A place for everything, everything in its place."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A small leak can sink a great ship."
by Benjamin Franklin
"A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over."
by Benjamin Franklin
"After three days men grow weary of a wench, a guest, and rainy weather."
by Benjamin Franklin
"All cats are gray in the dark."
by Benjamin Franklin
"All mankind is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable; and those who move."
by Benjamin Franklin
"All would live long, but none would be old."
by Benjamin Franklin
"All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones."
by Benjamin Franklin
"An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns."
by Benjamin Franklin
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
by Benjamin Franklin
"And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Anger is never without a reason but seldom a good one."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both"
by Benjamin Franklin
"As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence."
by Benjamin Franklin
"At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment."
by Benjamin Franklin
"At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Be civil to all sociable to many familiar with few friend to one enemy to none."
by Benjamin Franklin
"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."
by Benjamin Franklin


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