Benjamin Franklin - Man Quotes

66 Sourced Quotes

View all Benjamin Franklin Quotes
None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault or acknowledge himself in error.

Benjamin Franklin
Industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth... thereby [secures] virtue, it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly....

Benjamin Franklin
Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." He planned his routine around waking up at 5 a.m. and asking himself "What good shall I do this day?

Benjamin Franklin
Life with Fools consists in Drinking; with the wise Man, living's Thinking.

Benjamin Franklin
A man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false.

Benjamin Franklin
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 anybody may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country!

Benjamin Franklin
After all, wedlock is the natural state of man. A bachelor is not a complete human being. He is like the odd half of a pair of scissors, which has not yet found its fellow, and therefore is not even half so useful as they might be together.

Benjamin Franklin
Virtue alone is sufficient to make a man great, glorious, and happy.

Benjamin Franklin
The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not.

Benjamin Franklin
It is the man and woman united that makes the complete human being. Separate she lacks his force of body and strength of reason; he her softness, sensibility and acute discernment. Together they are most likely to succeed in the world.

Benjamin Franklin
An honest Man will receive neither Money nor Praise that is not his due.

Benjamin Franklin
I have never seen the Philosopher's Stone that turns lead into Gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a Man's Gold into Lead.

Benjamin Franklin
The cause of the South was the cause of constitutional government, the cause of government regulated by law, and the cause of honesty and fidelity in public servants. No nobler cause did man ever fight for!

Benjamin Franklin
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.

Benjamin Franklin
Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.

Benjamin Franklin
A wise man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contently.

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

Benjamin Franklin
The honest Man takes Pains, and then enjoys Pleasures; the knave takes Pleasure, and then suffers Pains.

Benjamin Franklin
Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.

Benjamin Franklin
Don't think so much of your own Cunning, as to forget other Men's; a Cunning Man is overmatched by a cunning Man and a Half.

Benjamin Franklin
Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitious care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.

Benjamin Franklin
Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.

Benjamin Franklin
Serving God is doing good to man, but praying is thought an easier service and therefore more generally chosen.

Benjamin Franklin
Whether a Commonwealth suffers more by hypocritical pretenders to religion or by the openly profane? The most dangerous hypocrite in a Commonwealth is one who leaves the gospel for the sake of the law. A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law.

Benjamin Franklin
In going on with these Experiments, how many pretty systems do we build, which we soon find ourselves oblig'd to destroy! If there is no other Use discover'd of Electricity, this, however, is something considerable, that it may help to make a vain Man humble.

Benjamin Franklin
I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody.

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

Benjamin Franklin
On the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet as I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it

Benjamin Franklin
Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely ford that see the shallows.

Benjamin Franklin
If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.

Benjamin Franklin