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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)

Necessity never made a good bargain.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Necessity

Love, and be loved.
—Benjamin Franklin

Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Leaders, Leadership

Sin is not harmful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Sin

If time be of all things most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality, since lost time is never found again.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Time Management, Value of Time

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: One liners, Desire, Desires

If you do not want to be forgotten, when you are dead and rotting, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
—Benjamin Franklin

Don’t go to the doctor with every distemper, nor to the lawyer with every quarrel, nor to the pot for every thirst.
—Benjamin Franklin

Do not do what you would not have known.
—Benjamin Franklin

Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy.—He that rises late must trot all day, and hall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Poverty, Idleness

Dr. Franklin was for retaining the clause on impeachment, as favorable to the executive. History furnishes one example only of a first magistrate being formally brought to public justice. Every body cried out against this as unconstitutional. What was the practice before this, in cases where the chief magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why, recourse was had to assassination, in which he was not only deprived of his life, but of the opportunity of vindicating his character. It would be the best way, therefore, to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the executive, where his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal, where he should be unjustly accused.
—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

Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Time Management, One Step at a Time, Happiness, Value of Time

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

An empty bag will not stand upright.
—Benjamin Franklin

Be neither silly, nor cunning, but wise.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Intelligence

The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
—Benjamin Franklin

The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Praise

A word to the wise is enough, and many words won’t fill a bushel.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Words

Experience keeps a dear school; but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Fools, Experience

Observe all men; thy self most.
—Benjamin Franklin

A Temper to bear much, will have much to bear.
—Benjamin Franklin

Fools make feasts and wise men eat ’em.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Eating

Speak little, do much.
—Benjamin Franklin

Well done is better than well said.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Example, Inaction, Communication, Action, Getting Going, Doing, Accomplishment, Doing Your Best, Procrastination

The noblest question in the world is, What Good may I do in it?
—Benjamin Franklin

What signifies your Patience, if you can’t find it when you want it.
—Benjamin Franklin

Half the Truth is often a great Lie.
—Benjamin Franklin

Hunger is the best pickle.
—Benjamin Franklin

Whate’er’s begun in anger ends in shame.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Anger

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: Reading, Books

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Time, Love, Value of Time, Time Management, Idleness, Action, Life

They that won’t be counselled, can’t be helped.
—Benjamin Franklin

If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few.
—Benjamin Franklin
Topics: Appreciation, Blessings, Gratitude

I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.
—Benjamin Franklin

Rich widows are the only secondhand goods that sell at first-class prices.
—Benjamin Franklin

In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.
—Benjamin Franklin

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

You may give a Man an Office, but you cannot give him Discretion.
—Benjamin Franklin

Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible, that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator really did lose his virginity.
—Benjamin Franklin

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