Benjamin Franklin Quotes

Avarice and Happiness never saw each other, how then should they become acquainted?

Hear reason, or she'll make you feel her.

Opportunity is the great bawd.

To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast in the very lap of fortune.

For Age and Want save while you may; No morning Sun lasts a whole day.

A man is sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

Did not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I would choose to end my days in.

Hot things, sharp things, sweet things, cold things All rot the teeth, and make them look like old things.

Love, Cough, & a Smoke, can't well be hid.

He that hath a calling, hath an office of profit and honor.

Since I cannot govern my own tongue, though within my own teeth, how can I hope to govern the tongue of others?

A change of fortune hurts a wise man no more than a change of the moon.

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

A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part.

The moral and religious system which Jesus Christ transmitted to us is the best the world has ever seen, or can see.

I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.

Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

Let thy vices die before thee.

The wise man draws more advantage from his enemies than the fool from his friends

The Sting of a reproach, is the Truth of it.

Tis easy to see, hard to foresee.

Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.

A lighthouse is more useful than a church.

The Difficulty lies, in finding out an exact Measure but eat for Necessity, not Pleasure, for Lust knows not where Necessity ends.

When you are finished changing, you are finished.

Many dishes many diseases, Many medicines few cures.

Never spare the parson's wine nor the baker's pudding

The King's cheese is half wasted in parings: But no matter, 'tis made of the people's milk.

Force shites upon Reason's Back.

Don't think to hunt two hares with one dog.

He'll cheat without scruple, who can without fear.

A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone.

Contentment makes a poor person rich and discontent makes a rich person poor.

Learn of the skillful; he that teaches himself, has a fool for his master.

Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.

Life is a kind of Chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events.

Men take more pains to mask than mend.

Blame-all and Praise-all are two blockheads.

Speak with contempt of none, from slave to king, The meanest Bee hath, and will use, a sting.

Many have quarreled about religion that never practice it.

The things which hurt, instruct.

A full Belly makes a dull Brain: The Muses starve in a Cook's Shop.

The poor man must walk to get meat for his stomach, the rich man to get a stomach to his meat.

Fear to do ill, and you need fear else.

Teach your child to hold his tongue; he'll learn fast enough to speak.

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.

The two most beautiful sights I have witnessed in my life are a full blown ship at sail and the round-bellied pregnant female.

In prosperous fortunes be modest and wise, The greatest may fall, and the lowest may rise: But insolent People that fall in disgrace, Are wretched and nobody pities their Case.