Benjamin Franklin

Love your Neighbour; yet don't pull down your Hedge.

He that hath a Trade, hath an Estate.

He's a fool who cannot conceal his wisdom.

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection," he stated. "Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. ... Do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I hope...that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my opinion there never was a good war, or a bad peace.

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.

Life is rather a state of embryo, a preparation for life; a man is not completely born till he has passed through death.

Were the offer made true, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask should be the privilege of an author, to correct, in a second edition, certain errors of the first.

I would rather have it said, 'He lived usefully,' than, 'He died rich.'

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.

A full Belly makes a dull Brain: The Muses starve in a Cook's Shop.

People are best convinced by things they themselves discover.

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; for want of a horse, the battle was lost; for want of the battle, the war was lost.

Are you angry that others disappoint you? Remember you cannot depend upon yourself.

A quarrelsome man has no good neighbours.

Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes

To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.

Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.

The securest place is a prison cell, but there is no liberty

Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself

On the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it.