Benjamin Franklin

History will also give occasion to expatiate on the advantage of civil orders and constitutions; how men and their properties are protected by joining in societies and establishing government; their industry encouraged and rewarded, arts invented, and life made more comfortable; the advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good laws and a due execution of justice. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth.

To be humble to superiors is a duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.

He that would fish, must venture his bait.

Among the numerous luxuries of the table...coffee may be considered as one of the most valuable. It excites cheerfulness without intoxication; and the pleasing flow of spirits which it occasions...is never followed by sadness, languor or debility.

Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright.

He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

When women cease to be handsome, they study to be good.

Don't think to hunt two hares with one dog.

The height of foolishness is to discard an opportunity without full investigation

There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

Don't misinform your Doctor nor your Lawyer.

Most fools think they are only ignorant.

If a man would reap praise, you must sow the seeds, gentle words and useful deeds.

I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms.

All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.

To inquisitive minds like yours and mine the reflection that the quantity of human knowledge bears no proportion to the quantity of human ignorance must be in one view rather pleasing, viz., that though we are to live forever we may be continually amused and delighted with learning something new.

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.

Acquire Riches by Industry and Frugality.

Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

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