Benjamin Franklin Quotes

The following are some of the more politically meaningful quotes. Please submit your own via comment if we don’t have it here. When we write an article related to one of these quotes, we will link them, as much as possible. Also, all quotes are from Benjamin Franklin – this is, after all, a blog dedicated to him.

1. A country man between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
2. A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.
3. 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.
4. All would live long, but none would be old.
5. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
6. Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One.
7. At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment.
8. Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
9. Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
10. Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.
11. Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
12. Drive thy business or it will drive thee.
13. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
14. Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.
15. Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure.
16. Energy and persistence conquer all things.
17. Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
18. Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mend.
19. God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.
20. Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
21. He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue.
22. He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.
23. He that can have patience can have what he will.
24. He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
25. He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
26. He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
27. He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
28. He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows nor judge all he sees.
29. Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What’s a sun-dial in the shade?
30. How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.
31. I am in the prime of senility.
32. If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.
33. If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.
34. If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.
35. If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing.
36. If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.
37. If you wouldst live long, live well, for folly and wickedness shorten life.
38. If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun.
39. Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
40. Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price.
41. Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
42. Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.
43. 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.
44. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
45. There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
46. Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
47. Well done is better than well said.
48. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
49. Who is wise? He that learns from every One.
    Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions.
    Who is rich? He that is content.
    Who is that? Nobody.
50. You may delay, but time will not.
51. Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.
52. Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities.
53. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
54. But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
55. Take it from Richard, poor and lame, what’s begun in anger ends in shame.
56. Fish and visitors smell in three days.
57. To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
58. Wish not so much to live long as to live well.
59. Creditors have better memories than debtors.