"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition.

A place for everything, everything in its place.

Conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it.

People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security.

Three things are men most likely to be cheated in, a horse, a wig, and a wife.

Arguing is a game that two can play at. But it is a strange game in that neither opponent ever wins.

A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” Benjamin Franklin