I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else.

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be, as Poor Richard says, “the greatest prodigality'; since, as he elsewhere tells us, 'Lost time is never found again'; and 'What we call time enough always proves little enough'. Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.

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

A [desire] to abolish slavery prevails in North America, many of the Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and [Virginia legislators] have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more [slaves] into that colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted, as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed.

An education is the investment with the greatest returns.

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.