Benjamin Franklin Quotes

The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candle of industry and economy.

Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.

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.

Eat few suppers, and you'll need few medicines.

Rich widows are the only secondhand goods that sell at first-class prices.

The importation of foreigners into a country that has as many inhabitants as the present employments and provisions for subsistence will bear, will be in the end no increase of people, unless the new comers have more industry and frugality than the natives, and then they will provide more subsistence, and increase in the country; but they will gradually eat the natives out. Nor is it necessary to bring in foreigners to fill up any occasional vacancy in a country for such vacancy will soon be filled by natural generation.

Women and wine, game and deceit, make the wealth small, and the want great

Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong, and homely.

A man can be beautiful physically, mentally, or personality wise. True beauty, though, is in the spirit. A genuine man who understands right and wrong, with a strong sense of self is beautiful. A man who can be compassionate and caring, but firm and wise. Someone who can do the right thing no matter who's around to see it. Even if the deed is unseen and unrecognized. That is a beautiful man. One today is worth two tomorrows.

Avarice and Happiness never saw each other, how then should they become acquainted?

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

Nothing is more important for the public wealth than to form and train youth in wisdom and virtue. Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

He that best understands the world, least likes it

The poor have little; beggars, none; the rich, too much; enough, not one.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

You don't get somebody to like you by doing them a favor. That only tends to build resentment over the fact that they are needy and you are not. No, you ask them to do you a favor.

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

In short, I conceive that great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles.

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

I would rather have it said, 'He lived usefully,' than, 'He died rich.'

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.

Philosophy as well as foppery often changes fashion.

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

Fish and visitors stink in three days.

The man that walks wit crowd, will get no farther than the crowd. The man that walks alone, will reach places unknown.

That is simple. In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay.

No employment can be managed without arithmetic, no mechanical invention without geometry.

Onions can make even Heirs and Widows weep.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.

The madness of mobs or the insolence of soldiers, or both, when too near to each other, occasion some mischief.

It is a strange anomaly that men could be careful to insure their houses, their ships, their merchandise, and yet neglect to insure their lives - surely the most important of all to their families, and more subject to loss.

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith.

It is ill-manners to silence a fool and cruelty to let him go on

Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.

In America, they do not inquire of a stranger, "What is he?" but, "What can he do?"

The Body of B. Franklin, Printer Like the Cover of an old Book Its Contents turn out And Stript of its Lettering & Guilding Lies here. Food for Worms For, it will as he believed appear once more In a new and more elegant Edition corrected and improved By the Author.

Where liberty is, there is my country.

The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.

A virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed.

Money makes money. And the money that makes money makes more money.

If your riches are yours, why don't you take them with you to the other world?

Can anything be constant in a world which is eternally changing?

Ill customs and bad advice are seldom forgotten.

Creditors have better memories than debtors.