Who escapes a duty, avoids a gain.

Mankind never loses any good thing, physical, intellectual, or moral, till it finds a better, and then the loss is a gain. No steps backward is the rule of human history. What is gained by one man is invested in all men, and is a permanent investment for all time.

I am conscious of eternal life.

Want and wealth equally harden the human heart, as frost and fire are both alien to the human flesh. Famine and gluttony alike drive away nature from the heart of man.

There is no college for the conscience.

Humanity is the sin of God

The miraculous revelation of the Old Testament and the New, the miracles of famous men, Jews, Gentiles, or Christians, — then Franklin had no religion at all; and it would be an insult to say that he believed in the popular theology of his time, or of ours, for I find not a line from his pen indicating any such belief.