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)
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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
William Jennings Bryan American Political leader
Benjamin Harrison American Political leader
Che Guevara Argentine-Cuban Revolutionary
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn British Statesman
Henry L. Stimson American Political leader
J. William Fulbright American Political leader
Edmund Burke British Philosopher, Statesman
Laurens van der Post South African Explorer, Writer
Dante Alighieri Italian Poet, Philosopher
Adolf Hitler German Fascist Dictator