Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will...

I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 different ways to do it wrong.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I...

My Parents had early given me religious Impressions, and brought me through my Childhood piously in the Dissenting Way. But I was scarce 15 when, after doubting by turns of several Points as I found...

Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.

The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it...

Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price.

Never confuse Motion with Action.

Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.

The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.

Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint, but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to...

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

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.

A man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false.

Ohne Gedankenfreiheit gibt es keine Weisheit. Und ohne Redefreiheit keine öffentliche Freiheit.

Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes

If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix’d in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will...

To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.

Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.

For my own Part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring Favours, but as paying Debts. In my Travels, and since my Settlement, I have received much...

I know not which lives more unnatural lives, obeying husbands, or commanding wives.

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.

Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all

…wine [is] a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.

239Fish and Visitors stink after three days

it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright

A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have but little.

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. The unhappy man who has been treated as...

If Jack’s in love, he’s no judge of Jill’s beauty.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful.

You may delay, but time will not.

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both

We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves...

Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it,...

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. Your have to catch up with it yourself.

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it...

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each...

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.[misquote of a letter about wine, see quotes/831031]

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing...

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today.

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God. For, as all...

There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war…This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest...