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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Inspirational Quotations by Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) was an American statesman, inventor, diplomat, writer, and scientist. This leading figure in the American struggle for independence was one of the most versatile and talented men in colonial America.

Born in Boston, Franklin apprenticed to his brother, a printer, and began writing anonymously for his brother’s newspaper. He moved to Philadelphia, then to London, and returned to Philadelphia and established himself as a printer. He bought the Pennsylvania Gazette and turned it into one of the American colonies’ significant newspapers. He also wrote and published Poor Richard’s Almanack, an astronomy journal, under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. The Almanack became well known for the witty proverbs and maxims that Franklin included as fillers.

A leading delegate to the Continental Congress, Franklin became its architect. He was the only individual to sign all the three key documents of the new nation: the Declaration of Independence, the treaty with Great Britain that ended the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution.

Franklin held various government posts, including that of the deputy paymaster general of the colonies, and emissary to France and Great Britain. Franklin was also involved in many public projects, including founding the American Philosophical Society, a subscription library, and, in 1751, an academy that later became the University of Pennsylvania.

Franklin’s foremost scientific achievements were the formulation of a theory of electricity, which introduced positive and negative electricity, the demonstration of the electrical nature of lightning. His primary inventions were the lightning conductor, the “Franklin stove” (a kind of freestanding cast-iron heater,) and bifocal spectacles.

Franklin was legendary for his lifelong quest for self-improvement, as he thoroughly documented in his Autobiography (1791.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Benjamin Franklin

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Inspirational Quotes by Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Age

Never put off till tomorrow that which you can do today.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Procrastination

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Advice

God helps them that help themselves.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Help, Independence, Self-reliance

Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Proverbs

How fair is a garden amid the toils and passions of existence
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Gardening

Serving God is doing good to man, but praying is thought an easier service and therefore more generally chosen.
—Benjamin Franklin

Drive thy business, let not that drive thee.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Control, Business

Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Books, Reading

What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Expectation

He’s a Fool that cannot conceal his Wisdom.
—Benjamin Franklin

Nothing resists a human will that stakes its very existence upon the achievement of its purpose.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Achievement, Goal

In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Diet, Weight

Plough deep, while Sluggards sleep; And you shall have Corn, to sell and to keep.
—Benjamin Franklin

Favor or disappointment has been often conceded, as the name of the claimant has affected us; and the accidental affinity or coincidence of a name, connected with ridicule or hatred, with pleasure or disgust, has operated like magic.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Names

Work as if you were to live one hundred years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Prayer, Living, Learning

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness; and I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Character, Greatness, Greatness & Great Things

Tell a miser he’s rich, and a woman she’s old, you’ll get no money of one, nor kindness of t’other.
—Benjamin Franklin

Anger is never without a Reason, but seldom with a good One.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Reason, Anger

He has to learn that petulance is not sarcasm, and that insolence is not invective.
—Benjamin Franklin

What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Crime

I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Excuses

To bear other people’s afflictions, everyone has courage and enough to spare.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Suffering

Destiny bears us to our lot, and destiny is perhaps our own will.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Destiny

What signifies knowing the names, if you know not the nature of things.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Names

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Business

Fools multiply folly.
—Benjamin Franklin

If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Men

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Goodness

Those things that hurt, instruct.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Difficulties, Adversity

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Will, Aging, Experience, Wit, Judgment, Age

Don’t judge men’s wealth or godliness by their Sunday appearance.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Judging, Appearance, Judgment, Judges

The nearest I can make it out, “Love your Enemies” means, “Hate your Friends”
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Enemies

God helps them that help themselves.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Self-reliance

Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, contentment in the house, clothes on the children, vigor in the body, intelligence in the brain, and spirit in the whole constitution.
—Benjamin Franklin

Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Opinions, Opinion

Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Reading, Books, Meditation, Literature

I was told, continued Egremont, that an impassable gulf divided the Rich from the Poor; I was told that the Privileged and the People formed Two Nations, governed by different laws, influenced by different manners, with no thoughts or sympathies in common; with an innate inability of mutual comprehension.
—Benjamin Franklin

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Security

Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Royalty, Kings, Queens, Flattery

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