Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Benjamin Franklin Statesman

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Jan 17, 1706
  • Died: Apr 17, 1790

Benjamin Franklin (1706 1790) was an inventor, publisher. scientist, and statesman, who is known as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He was a major figure in the Enlightenment, known as a printer, satirist, political theorist, civic activist, and a diplomat, famous for his theories of electricity. He founded the first public lending library in America and first fire department in Pennsylvania.

Nine men in ten are would be suicides.

Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.

Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.

He that can have patience can have what he will.

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

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

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

Content makes poor men rich discontent makes rich men poor.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.

God works wonders now and then Behold a lawyer, an honest man.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

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

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

Applause waits on success.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.

Honesty is the best policy.

Time is money.

Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

Hunger is the best pickle.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

You may delay, but time will not.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Observe all men, thyself most.

When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue.

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

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed.

Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.

In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

Well done is better than well said.

Fatigue is the best pillow.

To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.

God helps those who help themselves.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.

At twenty years of age the will reigns at thirty, the wit and at forty, the judgment.

Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.

Lost time is never found again.

A place for everything, everything in its place.

Beware the hobby that eats.

Remember that credit is money.

I saw few die of hunger of eating, a hundred thousand.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.

There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.