Benjamin Franklin

It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of the world are managed. We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit of collected wisdom, but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices and private interests: for regulating commerce an assembly of great men is the greatest fool on earth

Hereafter, if you should observe an occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their due, and confess more fault than you can justly be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it, a great captain.

Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes it.

Indeed the general natural Tendency of Reading good History, must be, to fix in the Minds of Youth deep Impressions of the Beauty and Usefulness of Virtue of all Kinds, Publick Spirit, Fortitude.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and governments.

So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a grout at last.

Clean your finger before you point at my spots.

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.

The Difficulty lies, in finding out an exact Measure but eat for Necessity, not Pleasure, for Lust knows not where Necessity ends.

They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles.

The only certain things in life are death and taxes!

To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast in the very lap of fortune.

History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion, from its usefulness to the public; the advantage of a religious character among private persons; the mischiefs of superstition, and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.

There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking.

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.

If you wouldn't live long, live well; for folly and wickedness shorten life.

Neither a Fortress nor a Maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.