Benjamin Franklin Quotes

“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.”

“Paintings and fightings are best seen at a distance.”

“There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it.”

“Necessity never made a good bargain.”

“A little sturdiness when superiors are much in the wrong sometimes occasions consideration. And there is truth in the old saying that if you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you.”

“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.”

“Remember, that money is of the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again it is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.”

“The borrower is a slave to the lender and the debtor to the creditor.”

“None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in an error.”

“It is foolish to lay out money for the purchase of repentance.”

“Hear no ill of a friend, nor speak any of an enemy.”

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

“Poverty, Poetry, and new Titles of Honor, make Men ridiculous”

“Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

“A man separated from his reflective belt is no man at all.”

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.”

“No nation has ever been ruined by trade.”

“I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.”

“From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.”

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

“Nothing is so tiresome to one's self, as well as so odious to others, as disguise and affectation.”

“The proud hate pride in others.”

“The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked, than the supine, secure, and negligent.”

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