Quotes from Benjamin Franklin

None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in an error.

Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.

Eighth and lastly. They are so grateful!!

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

The greatest thing about the internet is that you can quote something and just totally make up the source.

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Buy what thou hast no Need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy Necessaries.

Creditors have better memories than debtors.

Hunger is the best pickle.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

A little neglect may breed great mischief… for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.

A single man has not nearly the value he would have in a state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors.

I have heard that nothing gives an Author so great Pleasure, as to find his Works respectfully quoted by other learned Authors.

I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

Games lubricate the body and the mind.

Remember that credit is money.

The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here, food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author.

We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.

It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals?

A republic, if you can keep it.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.