Benjamin Franklin Quotes - Page 3

Eat to please thyself but dress to please others.
Benjamin Franklin
Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.
Benjamin Franklin
He that can have patience can have what he will.
Benjamin Franklin
It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.
Benjamin Franklin
When confronted with two courses of action I jot down on a piece of paper all the arguments in favor of each one then on the opposite side I write the arguments against each one. Then by weighing the arguments pro and con and cancelling them out one against the other I take the course indicated by what remains.
Benjamin Franklin
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage half shut afterwards.
Benjamin Franklin
Without love what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents! Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely.
Benjamin Franklin
Perform without fail what you resolve.
Benjamin Franklin
A child thinks twenty shillings and twenty years can scarce ever be spent.
Benjamin Franklin
Teach your child to hold his tongue He'll learn fast enough to speak.
Benjamin Franklin
Little boats should keep near shore.
Benjamin Franklin
For want of a nail the shoe was lost for want of a shoe the horse was lost and for want of a horse the rider was lost being overtaken and slain by the enemy all for want of care about a horseshoe nail.
Benjamin Franklin
Carelessness does more harm than a want of knowledge.
Benjamin Franklin
A single man has not nearly the value he would have in a state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors.
Benjamin Franklin
At 20 years of age the will reigns at 30 the wit at 40 the judgment.
Benjamin Franklin
All would live long but none would be old.
Benjamin Franklin
Those things that hurt instruct.
Benjamin Franklin
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.
Benjamin Franklin
God helps them that helps themselves.
Benjamin Franklin
If you want a thing done go - if not send.
Benjamin Franklin
[I retained] only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence, never using when I advance any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words 'Certainly, 'undoubtedly', or any others that I give the Air of Positiveness to an Opinion; but rather say 'I conceive', or 'I apprehend a Thing to be so or so', 'It appears to me', or 'I should think it so or so for such & such Reasons', or 'I imagine' it to be so or so, or 'it is so' if I am not mistaken.—This Habit I believe has been of great Advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my Opinions and persuade Men into Measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting.—And as the chief Ends of Conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible Men would not lessen their Power of doing Good by a Positive assuming Manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create Opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which Speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving Information or Pleasure: For if you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction & prevent a candid Attention.
Benjamin Franklin
Let thy discontents be thy secrets
Benjamin Franklin
A man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false.
Benjamin Franklin
People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both
Benjamin Franklin
To all apparent beauties blind, each blemish strikes an envious mind.
Benjamin Franklin
To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends.
Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin
He that lives upon hope will die farting.
Benjamin Franklin
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.[misquote of a letter about wine, see quotes/831031]
Benjamin Franklin
In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.
Benjamin Franklin
A man who would sacrifice freedom for security deserves neither.
Benjamin Franklin
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
Benjamin Franklin
O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.translation (non-literal):O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher of virtues and expeller of vices! Just a single day lived well and according to your lessons is to be preferred to an eternity of errors.— Cicero, As quoted in Ben Franklin’s Autobiography
Benjamin Franklin
I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude, or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as they would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not, like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them.
Benjamin Franklin
To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.
Benjamin Franklin
Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.
Benjamin Franklin
Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have ad
Benjamin Franklin
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you...
Benjamin Franklin
A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought to have but little.
Benjamin Franklin
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.
Benjamin Franklin
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
Benjamin Franklin
So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
Benjamin Franklin
The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.
Benjamin Franklin
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin
... I think this Law, by which I am punished, is both unreasonable in itself, and particularly severe... Polly Baker
Benjamin Franklin
How much more than necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says.
Benjamin Franklin
He who can have patience can have what he will.
Benjamin Franklin
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin
If you will not hear reason, she'll rap your knuckles.
Benjamin Franklin
Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all
Benjamin Franklin
He that drinks his cider alone, let him catch his horse alone.
Benjamin Franklin
I didn't fail the test. I just found 100 different ways to do it wrong.
Benjamin Franklin
After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.
Benjamin Franklin
Imitate Jesus and Socrates
Benjamin Franklin
Be not sick too late, nor well too soon
Benjamin Franklin
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Benjamin Franklin
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
Benjamin Franklin
We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.
Benjamin Franklin