Skip links

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

Recommended Reading

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

Despair is the conclusion of fools.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Doubt

Vice knows she’s ugly, so puts on her mask.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Vice

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Health

Hunger never saw bad bread.
—Benjamin Franklin

Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Enemies, Balance, Enemy

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Value

Every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter can not well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Preaching, Evangelism

Setting too good an Example is a Kind of slander seldom forgiven.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Example

Our whole life is but a greater and longer childhood.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Childhood

Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions, and spend one penny less than thy clear gains; then shall thy pocket begin to thrive; creditors will not insult, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite, nor nakedness freeze thee.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Economy

When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Silence

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Time, Youth

Three things are men most likely to be cheated in, a horse, a wig, and a wife
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Cheating

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Peace

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Graduation, Perseverance, Resolve, Purpose, Society, Goal, Entrepreneurs, Endurance, Success & Failure, Success, Conviction

Reading makes a full Man, Meditation a profound Man,
discourse a clear Man.
—Benjamin Franklin

Do good to thy Friend to keep him, to thy enemy to gain him.
—Benjamin Franklin

The world is full of fools and faint hearts; and yet everyone has courage enough to bear the misfortunes, and wisdom enough to manage the affairs of his neighbor.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Hypocrisy, Fools, Foolishness

A person’s fate is their own temper.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Personality

Energy and persistence alter all things.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Energy

Christianity commands us to pass by injuries; policy, to let them pass by us.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Injury

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Fame

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country!
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Knowledge

To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Faith

Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Belief

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

Some of the domestic evils of drunkenness are houses without windows, gardens without fences, fields without tillage, barns without roofs, children without clothing, principles, morals, or manners.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Drunkenness

Christianity is completed Judaism or it is nothing.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Christians, Christianity

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Self-reliance, Confidence, Service, Self-Discovery

The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Time, Youth

Wondering Whom to Read Next?