Quotes About Franklin

But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they happened.

I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama.

Los innovadores legendarios, como Franklin, Snow y Darwin, poseen unas cualidades intelectuales comunes –cierta rapidez mental y una curiosidad sin límites–, pero también comparten otra característica: tienen un montón de aficiones.

John Legend is, in my opinion, classic. He is one of the best finds that has come along in a long time.

Paine was understandably concerned at first that the outbreak of fighting would disrupt his new livelihood. He wrote to Franklin, "I thought it very hard to have the country set on fire about my ears almost the moment I got into it." But then he grabbed a torch.

By then Franklin was a world-renowned scientific and political figure, feted for taming lightning and tyrants; that such a mundane improvement as fire prevention gave him such pleasure reflected his solid grounding in the affairs of ordinary life.

Put no trust in the benefits to accrue from early rising, as set forth by the infatuated Franklin.

Not only is your story your truth, your story is going to be the platform and the foundation for everything that's getting ready to happen in your life.

Now we must ask whether the internet has created an asymmetric technology risk for democracies that authoritarian governments can counteract more readily than the republican form of government that Franklin's words urge us to protect. The answer is probably yes. Digital technology has created a different world, and not always a better one.

In America, Benjamin Franklin famously risked his life by flying a kite in an electrical storm.

Simmons hadn't been too surprised to find Franklin a young bearded man who looked more like he ought to be doing a poetry reading at a college than leading people to look at a classified government facility.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

The very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

Nobody can write such ironic things unless he has a deep sense of injustice-injustice to those members of the race who are victims of the stupid, the pretentious and the hypocritical.

As Franklin temporized, another dispatch arrived from McClellan: "It is important to drive in the enemy in your front, but be cautious in doing it until you have some idea of his force. . . . Thus far our success is complete, but let us follow it up closely, but warily."2

The president's title as proposed by the senate was the most superlatively ridiculous thing I ever heard of. It is a proof the more of the justice of the character given by Doctr. Franklin of my friend [John Adams]: 'Always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes absolutely mad'.

It was one of the rules which above all others made Doctr. Franklin the most amiable of men in society, never to contradict anybody.

Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman and polymath, knew that a balanced, liberal education for all was essential for the proper flourishing of the American dream.

Inspired by these meetings, Franklin created a scheme in which the Junto members would contribute funds toward buying books that all members could use. This model soon grew beyond Franklin's Friday evening gatherings, leading him in 1731 to write the charter for the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of the first subscription libraries in America.

Franklin was an iconoclast, and perhaps best represented the American spirit. He was a serious man. He was not a sober one. Franklin was a party of one and represented the people who loved the country, but he understood that decency required humor.

Are these the people, created in greatness by the work of Jefferson and Franklin, he thought, are these the bitter farmers and hunters and craftsmen who came out of the wilderness, furious for liberty and justice, is this the new world of giants sung by Whitman?

Tis a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.

In France, where Franklin had lived from 1776 to 1785, he had won an extraordinary place in the public mind. The French had lionized him to the point of absurdity - or so at least his colleagues in the American mission thought.