In this post, we’ll read Benjamin Franklin quotes who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, Freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was the 15th of 17 children in his family. He received only a basic education and started his career as a printer and newspaper publisher. He did many things in his career including writing the ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack’, inventing lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove among many other inventions, and serving in the politics.
Franklin played a key role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was also involved in shaping the U.S. Constitution.
Let’s read some of the best Benjamin Franklin quotes on democracy, liberty, friends, time and more.
Best Benjamin Franklin Quotes
1. “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
2. “God helps those who help themselves.”
3. “He that can have patience can have what he will.”
4. “Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
5. “How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.”
6. “He that speaks much, is much mistaken.”
7. “If you desire many things, many things will seem few.”
8. “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”
9. “When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.”
10. “Who is strong? He that can conquer his bad habits.”
11. “It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Friends
1. “A true friend is the best possession.”
2. “When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.”
3. “Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.”
4. “Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.”
5. “A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.”
6. “There are three faithful friends – an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.”
7. “Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.”
8. “A Brother may not be a Friend, but a Friend will always be a Brother.”
9. “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Time
1. “Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.”
2. “Time is money.”
3. “If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.”
4. “Lost time is never found again.”
5. “You may delay, but time will not.”
6. “Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.”
7. “Since thou are not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.”
8. “One today is worth two tomorrows.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Life
1. “Wish not so much to live long as to live well.”
2. “To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”
3. “A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.”
4. “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”
5. “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.”
6. “Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.”
7. “Eat to live, don’t live to eat.”
8. “He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.”
9. “He that lives upon hope will die fasting.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Love
1. “He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.”
2. “Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”
3. “Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.”
4. “If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Marriage
1. “Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”
2. “Marriage is the most natural state of man, and… the state in which you will find solid happiness.”
3. “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”
4. “He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.”
5. “He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.”
6. “Never take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in.”
7. “You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?”
Wisdom Benjamin Franklin Quotes
1. “Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.”
2. “The doors of wisdom are never shut.”
3. “Observe all men, thyself most.”
4. “It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.”
5. “Distrust and caution are the parents of security.”
6. “When in doubt, don’t.”
7. “A place for everything, everything in its place.”
8. “Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
9. “Half a truth is often a great lie.”
10. “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”
11. “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.”
12. “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”
13. “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”
14. “At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.”
15. “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”
16. “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
17. “Don’t value a man for the quality he is of, but for the qualities he possesses.”
18. “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Freedom & Liberty
1. “Fart for freedom, fart for liberty—and fart proudly.”
2. “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
3. “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”
4. “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power.”
5. “The securest place is a prison cell, but there is no liberty.”
6. “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
7. “Where liberty is, there is my country.”
8. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on War
1. “Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later.”
2. “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
3. “All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.”
4. “Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.”
5. “There was never a bad peace or a good war.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Politics & Democracy
1. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
2. “For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.”
3. “Pardoning the bad, is injuring the good.”
4. “Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.”
5. “Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.”
6. “The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.”
7. “Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Education & Learning
1. “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
2. “Genius without education is like silver in the mine.”
3. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
4. “The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”
5. “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”
6. “Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”
7. “A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.”
8. “He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Success
1. “Applause waits on success.”
2. “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
3. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.”
4. “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.”
5. “In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
6. “Whatever you become be good at it.”
7. “You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.”
8. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
9. “Well done is better than well said.”
10. “No gains without pains.”
11. “Never confuse motion with action.”
12. “To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Happiness
1. “Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.”
2. “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
3. “Joy is not in things, it is in us.”
4. “There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.”
5. “It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.”
6. “Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Money
1. “If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.”
2. “He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.”
3. “He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.”
4. “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.”
5. “Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.”
6. “It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.”
7. “Necessity never made a good bargain.”
8. “Energy and persistence conquer all things.”
9. “Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.”
10. “Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.”
11. “Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.”
12. “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
13. “Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.”
14. “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
15. “Creditors have better memories than debtors.”
16. “Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.”
Benjamin Franklin Quotes on Integrity
1. “Honesty is the best policy.”
2. “Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.”
3. “Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.”
4. “Great modesty often hides great Merit.”
5. “Better slip with foot than tongue.”
6. “When you’re good to others, you’re best to yourself.”
7. “It is better to take many injuries than to give one.”
8. “Nothing was useful which was not honest.”
9. “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.”
10. “Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
11. “He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”
Witty Benjamin Franklin Quotes
1. “If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.”
2. “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
3. “Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.”
4. “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
5. “There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking.”
6. “A man of words and not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds.”
7. “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.”
8. “Beware the hobby that eats.”
9. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
These Benjamin Franklin quotes reflect the various roles he has assumed during his lifetime.
Franklin is one of the most prominent figures in American history and he is admired by the people for his wit, intelligence, and wisdom.
Which of these Benjamin Franklin quotes is your most favorite?
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