Quotes from Benjamin Franklin

We must hang together or we will surely hang separately

What physicians call perspirable matter is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five eighths of what we eat.—Author.

Where liberty is, there is my country.

as I am not fond of giving advice,having seldom seen it taken

several of us were corrected by our fathers; and though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.

Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think for.

My business was now continually augmenting, and my circumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having become very profitable, as being for a time almost the only one in this and the neighbouring provinces. I experienced, too, the truth of the observation, "that after getting the first hundred pound, it is more easy to get the second," money itself being of a prolific nature.

The first time I reviewed my regiment they accompanied me to my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical apparatus.

one thing I know that is I know NOTHING

The account of how Franklin's Autobiography came to be written and of the adventures of the original manuscript forms in itself an interesting story. The Autobiography is Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication; and the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part, from 1730 on, which was written with a view to publication.

I began to suspect that this doctrine, tho' it might be true, was not very useful.

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.

Aku lebih suka mengatakan, dia hidup berguna, daripada dia meninggal kaya raya.

Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.

He agreed with the captain of a New York sloop for my passage, under the notion of my being a young acquaintance of his that had got a naughty girl with child, whose friends would compel me to marry her, and therefore I could not appear or come away publicly.

The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relating to our ancestors.

That few in public affairs act from a meer view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend; and, tho' their actings bring real good to their country, yet men primarily considered that their own and their country's interest was united, and did not act from a principle of benevolence. "That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to the good of mankind.

Who is there that can be handsomely Supported in Affluence, Ease and Pleasure by another, that will chuse rather to earn his Bread by the Sweat of his own Brows?

Learn of the skilful: He that teaches himself, hath a fool for his master.

Ou escreva algo que valha a pena ler, ou faça algo que valha a pena escrever.

Jika anda ingin dicintai seseorang, cintailah dia dan bersikaplah agar layak dicintai.

Doing an Injury puts you below your Enemy; Revenging one makes you but even with him; Forgiving it sets you above him.