Quotes from Benjamin Franklin

No gains without pains.

We may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct.

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.

Wish not so much to live long as to live well.

Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.

To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.

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

A perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.

Nothing is more fatal to health than an over care of it.

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

Do good to your friends to keep them,to your enemies to win them.

Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made out of.

He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations.

Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried with fewer tensions and more tolerance.

That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God - when they become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure-instead of an aid, become an encumbrance and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way.

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

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

I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe in that He ought to be whipped from pilar to post and back again for His shameful actions toward Humanity.

This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ'd they are best contented. For on the Days they work'd they were good-natur'd and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, and in continual ill-humour. (Autobiography, 1771)

Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.

dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,

there was great difference between persons and, discretion did not always accompany years nor was youth always with out it

It is ill-manners to silence a fool and cruelty to let him go on

There are no gains without pains.