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
Recommended Reading
- ‘Benjamin Franklin: An American Life‘ by Walter Isaacson
- ‘The Way to Wealth‘ by Benjamin Franklin
- ‘The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin‘ by Benjamin Franklin
- ‘The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin‘ by H.W. Brands
- ‘Ben Franklin’s Almanac of Wit, Wisdom, and Practical Advice‘ by The Old Farmer’s Almanac
Inspirational Quotes by Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)
What you seem to be, be really.
—Benjamin Franklin
The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Reading
Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always questioning never learn anything.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Tact
Clean your finger before you point at my spots.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Hypocrisy
The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Money
Thirteen virtues necessary for true success: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Success, Secrets of Success
Taws Noah who first planted the vine and mended his morals by drinking its wine.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Wine
No enemy is so terrible as a man of genius.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Genius
Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Leaders, Vice, Leadership
Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows; never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Luck, Present, Tomorrow, Procrastination, Time, The Present, Fortune
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Genius, Education
He does not posses wealth that allows it to possess him.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Wealth
If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. Nor one has a right to go croaking about society, or, what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Grief, Attitude
War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: War
A small leak can sink a great ship
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Little Things, Things
If you desire many things, many things will seem few.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: One liners, Desire, Desires
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: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things, Character
A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Tact
The Sun never repents of the good he does, nor does he ever demand a recompence.
—Benjamin Franklin
Discussions should be conducted without fondness for dispute or desire for victory.
—Benjamin Franklin
Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad or sits idle one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Time
Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Idleness, Pride
Nothing is more fatal to health than an over care of it.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Health
Beware the hobby that eats.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Caution
One today is worth two tomorrows; what I am to be, I am now becoming.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: The Present, Today
To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Management
The most trifling actions that affect a man’s credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easier six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day.
—Benjamin Franklin
I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Virtue
Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the water they loved to drink. This good man, Noah, having seen that all his contemporaries had perished by this unpleasant drink, took a dislike to it; and G-d, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and revealed to him the art of making wine. By the aid of this liquid, he revealed more and more truth.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Wine
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Meaning, Growth
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