Benjamin Franklin Quotes

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is.
Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.

Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.