Quotes by Franklin, Benjamin




Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 April 17, 1790) was one of the most prominent of Founders and early political figures and statesmen of the United States. Considered the earliest of the Founders, Franklin was noted for his curiosity, ingenuity and diversity of interests. His wit and wisdom is proverbial to this day. More than anyone he shaped the American Revolution despite never holding national elective office. As a leader of the Enlightenment he had the attention of scientists and intellectuals all across Europe. As agent in London before the Revolution, and Minister to France during, he more than anyone defined the new nation in the minds of Europe. His success in securing French military and financial aid was decisive for American victory over Britain. He invented the lightning rod; he invented the notion of colonial unity; he invented the idea of America; historians hail him as the "First American". The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will mark Franklin's 300th Birthday in January 2006, with a wide array of exhibitions, and events citing Franklin's extraordinary accomplishments throughout his illustrious career..

"A benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance."

Franklin, Benjamin on faults    Share


"One should eat to live, not live to eat."

Franklin, Benjamin on food and eating    Share

"Most fools think they are only ignorant."

Franklin, Benjamin on fools and foolishness
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"The world is full of fools and faint hearts; and yet everyone has courage enough to bear the misfortunes, and wisdom enough to manage the affairs of his neighbor."

Franklin, Benjamin on fools and foolishness
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"Spinoza Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

Franklin, Benjamin on fools and foolishness    Share

"He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner."

Franklin, Benjamin on fortune    Share

"To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible."

Franklin, Benjamin on freedom
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"There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money."

Franklin, Benjamin on friends and friendship
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"Genius without education is like silver in the mine."

Franklin, Benjamin on genius
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"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade."

Franklin, Benjamin on genius
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"Clearly spoken, Mr. Fogg; you explain English by Greek."

Franklin, Benjamin on ambiguity    Share

"Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires."

Franklin, Benjamin on ambition    Share

"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."

Franklin, Benjamin on america    Share

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

Franklin, Benjamin on glutton    Share

"Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion."

Franklin, Benjamin on government
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"When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it."

Franklin, Benjamin on gratitude
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"Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones -- with ingratitude."

Franklin, Benjamin on gratitude    Share

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

Franklin, Benjamin on greatness
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"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."

Franklin, Benjamin on guests
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"Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good."

Franklin, Benjamin on habit
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"It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."

Franklin, Benjamin on habit
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"Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones."

Franklin, Benjamin on habit
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"There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means -- either may do -- the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier."

Franklin, Benjamin on happiness
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"Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life."

Franklin, Benjamin on happiness
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"Take time for all things; great haste makes great waste."

Franklin, Benjamin on hatred
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"Nothing is more fatal to health than an over care of it."

Franklin, Benjamin on health
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"To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals."

Franklin, Benjamin on health    Share

"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart."

Franklin, Benjamin on art
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"Honesty is the best policy."

Franklin, Benjamin on honesty
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"He that lives upon hope will die fasting."

Franklin, Benjamin on hope
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"Clean your finger before you point at my spots."

Franklin, Benjamin on hypocrisy
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"Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease."

Franklin, Benjamin on idleness    Share

"Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright."

Franklin, Benjamin on idleness    Share

"Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him."

Franklin, Benjamin on idleness    Share

"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one."

Franklin, Benjamin on ignorance    Share

"He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on."

Franklin, Benjamin on ignorance
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"Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn."

Franklin, Benjamin on ignorance
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"The sleeping fox catches no poultry."

Franklin, Benjamin on action    Share

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