Benjamin Franklin Quotes

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To the haranguers of the populace among the ancients, succeed among the moderns your writers of political pamphlets and news-papers, and your coffee-house talkers.

Benjamin Franklin
Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Do you love truth for truth's sake; and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others.

Benjamin Franklin
Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.

Benjamin Franklin
It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights.

Benjamin Franklin
Disdain the chain, preserve your freedom; and maintain your independency: be industrious and free; be frugal and free.

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

Benjamin Franklin
Would you persuade, speak of Interest, not of Reason.

Benjamin Franklin
I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning...

Benjamin Franklin
I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.

Benjamin Franklin
They appeared all to have made considerable progress in reading for the time they had respectively been in the school, and most of them answered readily and well the questions of the catechism. They behaved very orderly, and showed a proper respect and ready obedience to the mistress, and seemed very attentive to, and a good deal affected by, a serious exhoration with which Mister Sturgeon concluded our visit. I was on the whole much pleased, and from what I then saw, have conceived a higher opinion of the natural capacities of the black race, than I had ever before entertained. Their apprehension seems as quick, their memory as strong, and their docility in every respect equal to that of white children.

Benjamin Franklin
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.

Benjamin Franklin
Some men grow mad by studying much to know,
But who grows mad by studying good to grow.

Benjamin Franklin
George Washington, Commander of the American armies, who, like Joshua of old, commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, and they obeyed him.

Benjamin Franklin
To all apparent beauties blind, each blemish strikes an envious mind.

Benjamin Franklin
Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!

Benjamin Franklin
The world is full of fools and faint hearts; and yet everyone has courage enough to bear the misfortunes, and wisdom enough to manage the affairs, of his neighbor.

Benjamin Franklin
He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night.

Benjamin Franklin
I think opinions should be judged of by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous, which I hope is the case with me.

Benjamin Franklin
A wolf eats sheep but now and then, ten Thousands are devour'd by Men.

Benjamin Franklin
But I must own that I am much in the Dark about Light. I am not satisfy'd with the doctrine that supposes particles of matter call'd light continually driven off from the Sun's Surface, with a Swiftness so prodigious!

Benjamin Franklin
Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.

Benjamin Franklin
Whilst the last members were signing it Doctor Franklin looking towards the President's Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.

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

Benjamin Franklin
You will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known, and exist, before it is generally received and practiced on.

Benjamin Franklin
Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no persuasion move thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollity; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Benjamin Franklin