Quotes By Benjamin Franklin
(Page 7 of 8)

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

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

Mine is better than ours.

Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

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

Those that won't be counseled can't be helped.

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

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

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

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.

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

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

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

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

To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

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.

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

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

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

Fatigue is the best pillow.

Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.

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

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Applause waits on success.

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

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

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

God helps those who help themselves.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

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

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

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

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

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

I have no private interest in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor proposed to make, the least profit by any of them.

He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'

I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.

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

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.

When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

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

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

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

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

Remember that credit is money.

We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

Beware the hobby that eats.

Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.

The discontented man finds no easy chair.

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.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.

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.

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

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

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

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

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.

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

Nine men in ten are would be suicides.

Creditors have better memories than debtors.

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

And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

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

Lost time is never found again.

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

Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter.

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

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

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.

An egg today is better than a hen to-morrow.

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

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

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

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

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.

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

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

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.