Quotes from Benjamin Franklin

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

I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character… like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy…The turkey… is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.

A ship under sail and a big-bellied woman, Are the handsomest two things that can be seen common.

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

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

At twenty years of age the will reigns at thirty, the wit and at forty, the judgment.

He that's secure is not safe.

Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

There is no little enemy.

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

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

Avarice and happiness never saw each other, how then should they become acquainted.

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

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

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

Beauty and folly are old companions.

Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle.

He [the sun] gives light as soon as he rises.

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

When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.

The next thing most like living one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district - all studied and appreciated as they merit - are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.

A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote. (Misattributed)