Benjamin Franklin Quotes

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

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

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

Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.

Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.

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

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

Time is money.

One today is worth two tomorrows.

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

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

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

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

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

Hunger is the best pickle.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Distrust and caution are the parents of security.

Never confuse motion with action.

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

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

Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

Where liberty is, there is my country.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.

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.

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.

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

God helps those who help themselves.

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

Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones – with ingratitude.

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

To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.

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.

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

In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

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

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

Danger is sauce for prayers.

Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.

As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.

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

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

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

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

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

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

For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.

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.

Fatigue is the best pillow.

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.

The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.

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.

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

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?