benjamin Franklin

“A man wrapped up in himself is a very small bundle.”

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.  Keep in the sunlight.”

“Eat to live, not live to eat.”  [the 1733 Poor Richard’s Almanac]

“God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.”

“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.”

“I am what I am and that's all that I am and if I'm supposed to be somebody else, why do I look like me?”

“I will venture to lay it down for an infallible rule, that, if two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves money the most shall lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him.”  [Journal of a Voyage, 1726]

“If a man empties a purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.  An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

“If Jack's in love, he's no judge of Jill's beauty.”

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.”

“Lost Time is never found again.”  (the 1738 Poor Richard’s Almanac)

“Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but nothing in the world is certain but death and taxes.”  [written 1789]

“Remember that time is money.”  (the 1748 Poor Richard’s Almanac)

“The body of
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer,
Like the cover of an old book,
its contents torn out,
and stript of its lettering and gilding,
lies here food for worms;
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will (as he believed) appear once more
in a new and more beautiful edition
Corrected and amended
by the Author.”  (written many years before his death)

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

“The doors of wisdom are never shut.”

“The proof of gold is fire...”

“There is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered... this [government] is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

“There never was a good war or a bad peace.”  [in a Sept. 11, 1783 letter to Josiah Quincy]

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

“Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.”

“We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”  [upon his signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776]

“Well done is better than well said.” 

“Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults in the first.”

“What's a Sun-Dial in the Shade?”

“When you're finished changing, you're finished.”

“You may delay, but Time will not.”  (the 1758 Poor Richard’s Almanac)