Quotes from Benjamin Franklin

Keep Conscience clear, then never fear.

I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily,

Beware of little expenses; A small Leak will sink a great Ship; and again, Who Dainties love, shall Beggars prove; and moreover, Fools make Feasts, and wise Men eat them.

So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Now I have a sheep and cow, everybody bids me good morrow.

if you judge a book by its cover,a fish will be thinking how stupid it looks its whole life.

I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering that by traveling further in the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again; which having done these four years, you may now call me sixty-six. Advise those old friends of ours to follow my example; keep up your spirits, and that will keep up your bodies.

What condition of man most deserves pity?" - Franklin offered: "A lonesome man on a rainy day who does not know how to read.

He is not well bred, that cannot bear ill breeding in others.

Nothing so likely to make a man's fortune as virtue.

By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be growing old.

The Use of Money is all the Advantage there is in having Money.

It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.

Some people are weatherwise, but most are otherwise.

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken.

if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.

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, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.

When you are good to others you are best to yourself.

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he forms a good plan, and then makes the execution of that plan his sole study and business.

Somebody, it seemed, gave it out that I loved ladies; and then everybody presented me their ladies (or the ladies presented themselves) to be embraced, that is to have their necks kissed...The French ladies had a thousand other ways of rendering themselves agreeable by their various attentions and civilities, and their sensible conversation. Tis a delightful people to live with.

his business. On Denman's death he returned to his former trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published "The Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac" for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his popular reputation.

At the working man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.

If you would be remembered, write a book worth the reading or live a life worth the writing about.

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbours, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project.