Top 100 Quotes About Benjamin Franklin
#1. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
#2. In America, Benjamin Franklin famously risked his life by flying a kite in an electrical storm.
Bill Bryson
#3. The same man who will quote from Benjamin Franklin on thrift for the house organ would be horrified if consumers took these maxims to heart and started putting more money into savings and less into installment purchases.
William H. Whyte
#4. No man is truly free who is in financial bondage. 'Think what you do when you run in debt', said Benjamin Franklin, 'you give another power over your liberty.'
Ezra Taft Benson
#5. Way back in 1755 Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." With
Hillary Rodham Clinton
#6. Lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas.
One of the main characters in 'Nothing is Lost' says that. She probably didn't know that the source was Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin
#7. Sketches Einstein: His Life and Universe A Benjamin Franklin Reader Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Kissinger: A Biography The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (with Evan Thomas)
Walter Isaacson
#8. failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.... Know who said that? Benjamin Franklin. That
C.C. Chapman
#9. Historically, when Americans don't know what to do next, they go to Paris. Benjamin Franklin is like: 'What am I going to do now? I'll go to Paris!'
Craig Ferguson
#10. [Speaking of Chinese president Sun Yat-sen] ... combined Benjamin Franklin and George Washington of China.
Calvin Coolidge
#11. The kindest reaction Hamilton received was from Benjamin Franklin. He was asleep. In contrast, Hamilton's ally James Madison was alert - but with worry in his eyes and woe written across his face.7
Mike Lee
#12. One thing that always frustrated me was that, while Benjamin Franklin's was the best-known face of the eighteenth century, no one ever took his sister's likeness.
Jill Lepore
#13. Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct.
M. Scott Peck
#14. For years, I've had a hankering for the portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis. Franklin is credited with so many inventions: the postal system, lightning rods, the constitution. He was a rock star before there was such a thing.
Jon Bon Jovi
#15. Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man because he once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from a deeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did not want one.
Robert Louis Stevenson
#16. Reagan's half a disciple of Benjamin Franklin. He believes in early to bed.
Lyn Nofziger
#17. I was born with a reading list that I will never finish.
The person who deserves that most pity is a lonely one on a rainy day that does not know how to read.
Benjamin Franklin
Maude Casey
#18. Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul. Benjamin Franklin
Laura Frantz
#20. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
--Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Wendy Goerl
#21. There's a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin that I always loved: "By failing to prepare, you're preparing to fail".
Argena Olivis
#22. In the 1770s, when he was in Paris, Benjamin Franklin witnessed the flight of one of the first hot-air balloons. As the balloon soared into the air, someone asked Franklin: "What good is it?" Franklin responded: "What good is a new-born baby?
Benjamin Franklin
#23. Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin.
James Thurber
#24. Benjamin Franklin said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes. But I'd like to add a third certainty: trash. And while some in this room might want to discuss reducing taxes, I want to talk about reducing trash.
Ruth Ann Minner
#25. It would be easy to assume that the open letter is a symptom of the Internet age. Such is not the case. In 1774, Benjamin Franklin wrote an open letter to the prime minister of Great Britain, Lord North - a satirical call for the imposition of martial law in the colonies.
Roxane Gay
#26. Benjamin Franklin, said: "Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.
David Suzuki
#27. Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. They had 'Loneliness' and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.
Carl Sandburg
#28. Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Benjamin Franklin
#29. Benjamin Franklin, that those who trade some of their liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither and will lose both. The wisdom of the founders never ceased to amaze him.
Brad Thor
#30. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen
Benjamin Franklin
#31. When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God.
Bertrand Russell
#32. Benjamin Franklin had a thirteen-week plan for moral perfection in which he practiced one virtue every week so as to turn it into a habit.
4 Hour Must Reads
#33. Has President Bush exceeded his constitutional authority or acted illegally in authorizing wiretaps without a warrant? Benjamin Franklin would not have thought so.
Pete Du Pont
#34. People have always said - those words, 'too conservative,' is fairly relative. I'm sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
Sharron Angle
#35. I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed to at least show some humility, especially when you were strong.
Walter Isaacson
#36. My ideal man is Benjamin Franklin - the figure in American history most worthy of emulation ... Franklin is my ideal of a whole man ... Where are the life-size - or even pint-size - Benjamin Franklins of today?
Isidor Isaac Rabi
#37. We can ignore the lessons of nature and of history, but we cannot avoid the consequences of doing so. As Benjamin Franklin warned us, "Experience holds a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other.
Timothy Daughtry
#38. Benjamin Franklin refused to have one of his children vaccinated against smallpox. The four-year-old boy died, and Franklin wrote later of how mistaken he was to expose him to the needless risk.
Michael Specter
#39. Death and taxes are the only two certainties in life, as Mark Twain once said. Or was it Benjamin Franklin?
Stephen Leather
#40. Benjamin Franklin performed a beautiful experiment using surfactants: on a pond at Clapham Common, he poured a small amount of oleic acid, a natural surfactant which tends to form a dense film at the water-air interface.
Pierre-Gilles De Gennes
#41. As Benjamin Franklin said, 'Those things that hurt, instruct.' It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.
M. Scott Peck
#42. We know Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as politicians, but they felt that science was something everyone should have a knowledge of.
Rush D. Holt Jr.
#43. Benjamin Franklin maintained that every star is a sun, and every sun nourishes a 'chorus of worlds' just like ours.
Matthew Stewart
#44. This country could use a president like Benjamin Franklin again.
Michele Bachmann
#45. Americans understand that one of our great national strengths is innovation. Great innovators - Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others - are household names.
Robert Hormats
#46. How I longed to see these things; how I longed to see the Liberty Bell and walk on the streets where Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin had walked.
Burl Ives
#47. The myth that young people should leave the nest at 18, never to return, started with iconic American Benjamin Franklin.
Annalee Newitz
#48. [Benjamin Franklin]. Not only one of our nation's founding geniuses but a printer and publisher, too ... He knew that to form the soul of America, one must control the presses.
Matthew Pearl
#49. He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom." - Benjamin Franklin.
Peter Rogers
#50. Continental three-dollar bill, designed by Benjamin Franklin. An eagle fights a crane, with the motto "Exitus in dubio est," "The outcome is in doubt.
Kathleen DuVal
#51. I'm so proud of myself. I thought, 'I've got to learn about American history.' I literally took two months off and watched every documentary known to man. I really didn't know Benjamin Franklin was so cool.
Rene Russo
#52. To me, Arnold was a pioneer in the spirit of Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin, while Tiger is a pioneer in the spirit of Bill Gates.
Mark McCormack
#53. Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was forever young, his temper ever serene; science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death.
Thomas Paine
#54. Benjamin Franklin said, "Energy and persistence conquer all things."79
Tim Sanders
#55. Benjamin Franklin said it best: "Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom." Now,
Meik Wiking
#56. If you would not be forgotten
When you are old and rotten
Either write something worth reading
Or do something worth writing about.
Benjamin Franklin
Edna Bell-Pearson
#57. From Samuel Adams to Patrick Henry to Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Hamilton, all the Founders intended religion to provide a moral anchor for our liberty in democracy.
William Bennett
#58. You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again. - Benjamin Franklin
Damon Zahariades
#59. Pennsylvania, the state that has produced two great men: Benjamin Franklin of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland.
John James Ingalls
#60. The truth is that since the first book, I have wanted to emulate Benjamin Franklin and put together a healthy, wealthy and wise trilogy and so healthy was 'The 4-Hour Body,' wealthy was 'The 4-Hour Workweek' and then wise is 'The 4-Hour Chef.'
Timothy Ferriss
#61. When you have a goal, obstacles are actually teaching you how to get where you want to go - carving you a path. "The Things which hurt," Benjamin Franklin wrote, "instruct.
Ryan Holiday
#62. Benjamin Franklin didnt win 21 Grammys right?
Kanye West
#63. Benjamin Franklin said, "If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves." That
Brian P. Moran
#64. We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.' - Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
#65. My impression of the American people can be summarized by a quotation from Benjamin Franklin, "Those things that hurt instruct!" I realised that people in this part of the world meet their problems head on. They attempt to get out of them rather than suffer them.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
#66. HENDERSON, I LOVE YOUR NAME. I LOVE YOUR NOVEL. I LOVE YOUR FLANNEL SHIRTS, YOUR SMILE. I LOVE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND DINOSAURS AND VOLCANOES.
Phoebe Stone
#67. Benjamin Franklin and the whole idea of a new attitude to money: "Time is money." He invented that idea. Before that, time wasn't money in the same way; in the medieval age it was regarded as sinful for money to be the object of your life.
Tom Hodgkinson
#68. Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. - Benjamin Franklin
Bryant McGill
#70. Everything one has a right to do is not best to be done. Benjamin Franklin
Barbara W. Tuchman
#71. If you read our Founding Fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson - what we're doing now in this country is making them roll over in their graves.
Rick Santelli
#72. People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first. Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
#74. Pride is said to be the last vice the good man gets clear of ...
Benjamin Franklin
#75. To be humble to superiors is a duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.
Benjamin Franklin
#77. Nothing to do but work, Nothing to eat but food, Nothing to wear out but clothes, To keep one from going nude.
Benjamin Franklin King Jr.
#79. In other men we faults can spy,/ And blame the mote that dims their eye;/ Each little speck and blemish find;/ To our own stronger errors blind.
Benjamin Franklin
#80. O Lazy bones! Dost thou think God would have given thee arms and legs, if he had not design'd thou should'st use them?
Benjamin Franklin
#82. For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head.
Benjamin Franklin
#84. of light and life, thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit; and fill my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!
Benjamin Franklin
#86. It might be judged an affront to your understanding should I go about to prove this first principle; the existence of a Diety and that He is the Creator of the universe, for that would suppose you ignorant of what all mankind in all ages have agreed in.
Benjamin Franklin
#88. One good husband is worth two good wives, for the scarcer things are, the more they are valued.
Benjamin Franklin
#90. Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.
Benjamin Franklin
#92. Silence - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
Benjamin Franklin
#93. A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
Benjamin Franklin
#95. Take courage, Mortal ... Death cannot banish you from the Universe.
Benjamin Franklin
#96. If you would be remembered, write a book worth the reading or live a life worth the writing about.
Benjamin Franklin
#97. Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion ...
Benjamin Franklin
#100. The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality: that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything.
Benjamin Franklin
