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Quotes by Benjamin Franklin


He that can have patience can have what he will.
– Benjamin Franklin

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

Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes.
– Benjamin Franklin

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
– Benjamin Franklin

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
– Benjamin Franklin
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
– Benjamin Franklin
A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.
– Benjamin Franklin
A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
– Benjamin Franklin
A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
– Benjamin Franklin
A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.
– Benjamin Franklin
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
– Benjamin Franklin
A penny saved is a penny earned.
– Benjamin Franklin
A place for everything, everything in its place.
– Benjamin Franklin
Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.
– Benjamin Franklin
Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.
– 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 mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
– Benjamin Franklin
All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.
– 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.
– Benjamin Franklin
Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.
– Benjamin Franklin
And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?
– Benjamin Franklin
And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief,Depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.
– Benjamin Franklin
Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind.
– Benjamin Franklin
Applause waits on success.
– Benjamin Franklin
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
– 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
Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences.
– Benjamin Franklin
Beauty and folly are old companions.
– Benjamin Franklin
Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
– Benjamin Franklin
Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.
– Benjamin Franklin
Beware the hobby that eats.
– Benjamin Franklin
Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.
– Benjamin Franklin
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
– Benjamin Franklin
Clean your finger before you point at my spots.
– Benjamin Franklin
Creditors have better memories than debtors.
– Benjamin Franklin
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
– Benjamin Franklin
Distrust and caution are the parents of security.
– Benjamin Franklin
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
– Benjamin Franklin
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.
– Benjamin Franklin
Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.
– Benjamin Franklin
Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.
– Benjamin Franklin
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
– Benjamin Franklin
Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.
– Benjamin Franklin
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
– Benjamin Franklin
Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.
– Benjamin Franklin
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
– Benjamin Franklin
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.
– 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.
– Benjamin Franklin
Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.
– Benjamin Franklin
Games lubricate the body and the mind.
– Benjamin Franklin
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
– Benjamin Franklin
God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.
– Benjamin Franklin
Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
– Benjamin Franklin
Half a truth is often a great lie.
– Benjamin Franklin
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
– Benjamin Franklin
He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.
– Benjamin Franklin
He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.
– Benjamin Franklin
He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
– 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 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.
– Benjamin Franklin
He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.
– Benjamin Franklin
He that won't be counseled can't be helped.
– Benjamin Franklin
He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.
– Benjamin Franklin
He that's secure is not safe.
– Benjamin Franklin
He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
– Benjamin Franklin
He who waits upon fortune is never sure of dinner.
– Benjamin Franklin
He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines.
– Benjamin Franklin
Hear reason, or she'll make you feel her.
– Benjamin Franklin
Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?
– Benjamin Franklin
Honesty is the best policy.
– Benjamin Franklin
How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.
– Benjamin Franklin
Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.
– Benjamin Franklin
Hunger is the best pickle.
– Benjamin Franklin
I am about courting a girl I have had but little acquaintance with. How shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has? Answer. Commend her among her female acquaintances.
– Benjamin Franklin
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.
– Benjamin Franklin
I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.
– Benjamin Franklin
I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.
– Benjamin Franklin
I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand.
– Benjamin Franklin
I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, Without vanity I may say, etc., but some vain thing immediately followed.
– 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.
– Benjamin Franklin
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.
– Benjamin Franklin
If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.
– Benjamin Franklin
If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.
– 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.
– Benjamin Franklin
If it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for the cultivation of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means.
– Benjamin Franklin
If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.
– Benjamin Franklin
If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.
– Benjamin Franklin
If you desire many things, many things will seem few.
– Benjamin Franklin
If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.
– Benjamin Franklin
If you would be loved, love and be lovable.
– Benjamin Franklin
If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.
– Benjamin Franklin
If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
– Benjamin Franklin
If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
– Benjamin Franklin
In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.
– Benjamin Franklin
In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.
– Benjamin Franklin
In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
– Benjamin Franklin
Industry need not wish.
– Benjamin Franklin
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.
– Benjamin Franklin