Ben Franklin Quotes

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.

Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.

Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

There was never a bad peace or a good war.

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

When you're testing to see how deep water is, never use two feet.

Myrnin turned away to pick up his Ben Franklin spectacles, balanced them on his nose, and looked over them to say, "Don't do drugs. I feel I ought to say that.

A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still

In the Affairs of this World Men are saved, not by Faith, but by the Lack of it.

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Work as if you were to live a thousand years, play as if you were to die tomorrow.

Fish and visitors smell in three days.

Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.

you can do anything you set your mind to

He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face. - Ben Franklin

This is what historians usually do, quibble about cause and effect when the point is, there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice in the right place can move the world. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, for instance. Bismark. Lenin.

You only have the right to pursue happiness; you have to catch it yourself.

If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England. [Letter to the London Packet, 3 June 1772]

If you give up your freedom for safety, you don't deserve either one.

I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!!!

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

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

Don't cry over spilled milk

Purple light passed over the paper, but nothing happened. "Next!" Amy said. She was sure the man in black was going to burst in on them any second. "Whoa!" Dan said. Amy gripped his arm. "You found it?" "No, but look! This whole essay - 'To the Royal Academy.' He wrote a whole essay on farts!" Dan grinned with delight. "He's proposing a scientific study on different fart smells. You're right, Amy. This guy was a genius!

I'd rather be a pessimist because then I can only be pleasantly surprised.

If you FAIL to PLAN. You PLAN to FAIL.

Any society that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." Ben Franklin

Ben Franklin said: "Early to bed and early to rise Make a man healthy wealthy and wise" Lately I have read the advice given to William Randolph Hearst, when a young man, by his father: "Go downtown at noon and rob the other fellows of what they have made during the morning.

Work on your strengths, not your weaknesses. How many of your New Year’s resolutions have been about fixing a flaw? And how many of those resolutions have you made several years in a row? It’s difficult to change any aspect of your personality by sheer force of will, and if it is a weakness you choose to work on, you probably won’t enjoy the process. If you don’t find pleasure or reinforcement along the way, then—unless you have the willpower of Ben Franklin—you’ll soon give up. But you don’t really have to be good at everything. Life offers so many chances to use one tool instead of another, and often you can use a strength to get around a weakness.

The purpose of money was to purchase one's freedom to pursue that which is useful and interesting.

If you have a bald head don't walk out in the sun because you will get burned.

god grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that anybody may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country!

How do you know, Dan? You were so young when they died. Do you really remember them?" "Not in my mind," Dan replied, gazing at the passing scenery. "But everyplace else...

Nine men in ten are suicides.

Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin's wisdom not biblical; it's counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.

The Ben Franklin Effect: If weak ties do favors for us, they start to like us. Then they become even more likely to grant us additional favors in the future. Franklin decided that if he wanted to get someone in his side, he ought to ask for a favor. And he did.

Beware of little expenses; A small leak will sink a great ship, as Poor Richard says; and again, Who dainties love, shall beggars prove; and moreover, Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.

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

If dost thou love life, then Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of, as Poor Richard says.

Ben Franklin’s excellent advice: “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

The feeling of freedom, of seein' the light It's Ben Franklin with a key and a kite! You see it, right?

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Ben Franklin

A particularly apropos Ben Franklin adage had come to mind: Two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.

Ben Franklin advises his grandson not to let even the American Revolution interrupt his studies, urging of young adulthood, "This is the time of life in which you are to lay the foundations of your future improvement and of your importance among men. If this season is neglected, it will be like cutting off the spring from the year.

One today is worth two tomorrows,

O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus. translation (non-literal): O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher of virtues and expeller of vices! Just a single day lived well and according to your lessons is to be preferred to an eternity of errors. — Cicero, As quoted in Ben Franklin’s Autobiography

In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words: industry and frugality. Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he can, will certainly become rich.

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

Ben Franklin’s advice: “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut thereafter.

As wise old Ben Franklin used to say:   If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.

Words have great power that could make or break others...so please be care with them✌ www.bullyingben.com

It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.

As a writer, politician, scientist, and businessman, [Ben] Franklin had few equals among the educated of his day—though he left school at ten. (...) Boys like Andrew Carnegie who begged his mother not to send him to school and was well on his way to immortality and fortune at the age of thirteen, would be referred today for psychological counseling; Thomas Edison would find himself in Special Ed until his peculiar genius had been sufficiently tamed.

We may make these times better, if we better ourselves.

At the working man’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. —BEN FRANKLIN, POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK T

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he forms a good plan, and then makes the execution of that plan his sole study and business.

When he got work my father worked as a steel worker, high up on tall buildings, walking on beams like those Mohawk Indians. It was dangerous work. People were always falling to their death. He worked on the building of the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia and on the few high-rise buildings they could afford to build in the Depression.

Details are but trifles, but details make for perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

Some people are weatherwise, and most are otherwise.

Truth is: “Real Men Don't Hurt and Abuse Anyone! They believe in KARMA and what you put into humanity...you always get back✌ www.bullyingben.com

Life Is A Beach...So Whenever possible go out and enjoy It...it's always possible

Shit travels a long way, but wherever it lands it smells the same. - Colonel Franklin Brickland

[M]y father discourag'd me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one.

Truth is... You had a purpose before anyone had an opinion. Finish your life's mission. Be happy and live your life❤ Be Somebody Great..Be You

We are redeemed one man at a time. There is no family pass ticket or park hopping pass to life. One ticket — one at a time. Man doesn’t vanquish hatred or bigotry. The target keeps moving. From the blacks to the Irish; atheists to Christians. But as always there are a few leaders: Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Booker T Washington, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They know that the march toward freedom never ends, man must be ever vigilant and pray less with his lips and more with his legs.

Life is all about memories... So do your best to get rid of the bad ones and never forgot the good ones :) www.bullyingben.com

Be a light today for all in despair. In hope that if you should fall...they will light your way tomorrow! www.bullyingben.com

Great is a person that can laugh at their troubles...for they have found an avenue to help them rise above their despair.

So you had a bad day...Just remember it can't last forever! www.bullyingben.com

As a wiseman once said: If you failed miserably today...try again tomorrow for it's a brand new day! www.bullyingben.com

❤Love is the missing factor in our world today. Without it...humanity can never obtain true peace✌ www.bullyingben.com

Many people make the same common mistake in life:They give up right before they make it. Don't give up!

You can't swim free through life...if you're constantly tied to an anchor. Let go of whatever is holding you back. You'll live a better life by doing so! www.bullyingben.com

❤What our world needs now is not war for our earth has seen too much of its bloodshed but peace is what humanity truly needs✌

Poverty and mistakes are setbacks but you should never allow them to make you give up on your dreams.

Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.

Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,

Stop wasting your time with people who don’t value your help or who you are. They take with one hand & disrespect you with the other. Move on with your life.

If you want to help better inspire our world...go out and empower the lives of children. If you want to inspire your life...do the same

As you continue breathing others take their last. So stop complaining & enjoy living your life as best as you can.

Children will always learn from us. If we are angry, abusive and violent...how can we ever expect them to be peaceful?

Despair will destroy you...If you allow it too. Please... don't let it destroy you!

Let go of your hurts and fear. Let go of anger and revenge. Don't live destructive... Live a happy life instead!

What you believe and practice throuhout your life becomes you. If you practice Love, Peace, Kindness and Goodness throughout your years...so shall your life follow in your footsteps.

Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good, that's just how life is”. Great is the person that is strong enough to overcome all despair in their lives!” www.bullyingben.com

I'm told by my young friends that experience is much more important than books. Of course Ben Franklin had something to say about experience and fools, but even Franklin thought that a fool would learn by his experience. That has proven false in the modern world. Some people are simply unwilling to learn under any circumstances, which maybe, even then, wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so damned proud of it.

Just trying to give something back to humanity, with what I do best...writing. It's my dire hope that we can reach many in despair and help save them from the demon of BULLYCIDE! Timothy Pina www.bullyingben.com

I wrongly believed that the worst was over, and so I cared less about the time it would take the Americans to figure out that I was not the guy they are looking for. I trusted the American justice system too much, and shared that trust with the detainees from European countries. We all had an idea about how the democratic system works. Other detainees, for instance those from the Middle East, didn’t believe it for a second and trust the American system. Their argument lay on the growing hostility of extremist Americans against Muslims and the Arabs. With every day going by, the optimists lost ground. The interrogation methods worsened considerably as time went by, and as you shall see, those responsible for GTMO broke all the principles upon which the U.S. was built and compromised every great principle such as Ben Franklin’s “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

thought all the wilderness of America was in the West till the Ghost of the Susquehanna showed me different. No, there is a wilderness in the East; it’s the same wilderness Ben Franklin plodded in the oxcart days when he was postmaster, the same as it was when George Washington was a wildbuck Indian-fighter, when Daniel Boone told stories by Pennsylvania lamps and promised to find the Gap, when Bradford built his road and men whooped her up in log cabins. There were not great Arizona spaces for the little man, just the bushy wilderness of eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, the backroads, the black-tar roads that curve among the mournful rivers like Susquehanna, Monongahela, old Potomac and Monocacy.

5-4-10 Tuesday 8:00 A.M. Made a large batch of chili and spaghetti to freeze yesterday. And some walnut fudge! Relieved the electricity is still on. It’s another beautiful sunny day with fluffy white clouds drifting by. The last cloud bank looked like a dog with nursing pups. I open the window and let in some fresh air filled with the scent of apple and plum blossoms and flowering lilacs. Feels like it’s close to 70 degrees. There’s a boy on a skate board being pulled along by his St. Bernard, who keeps turning around to see if his young friend is still on board. I’m thinking of a scene still vividly displayed in my memory. I was nine years old. I cut through the country club on my way home from school and followed a narrow stream, sucking on a jawbreaker from Ben Franklins, and I had some cherry and strawberry pixie straws, and banana and vanilla taffy inside my coat pocket. The temperature was in the fifties so it almost felt like spring. There were still large patches of snow on the fairways in the shadows and the ground was soggy from the melt off. Enthralled with the multi-layers of ice, thin sheets and tiny ice sickles gleaming under the afternoon sun, dripping, streaming into the pristine water below, running over the ribbons of green grass, forming miniature rapids and gently flowing rippling waves and all the reflections of a crystal cathedral, merging with the hidden world of a child. Seemingly endless natural sculptures. Then the hollow percussion sounds of the ice thudding, crackling under my feet, breaking off little ice flows carried away into a snow-covered cavern and out the other side of the tunnel. And I followed it all the way to bridge under Maple Road as if I didn't have a care in the world.

Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good.

So began my love affair with books. Years later, as a college student, I remember having a choice between a few slices of pizza that would have held me over for a day or a copy of On the Road. I bought the book. I would have forgotten what the pizza tasted like, but I still remember Kerouac. The world was mine for the reading. I traveled with my books. I was there on a tramp steamer in the North Atlantic with the Hardy Boys, piecing together an unsolvable crime. I rode into the Valley of Death with the six hundred and I stood at the graves of Uncas and Cora and listened to the mournful song of the Lenni Linape. Although I braved a frozen death at Valley Forge and felt the spin of a hundred bullets at Shiloh, I was never afraid. I was there as much as you are where you are, right this second. I smelled the gunsmoke and tasted the frost. And it was good to be there. No one could harm me there. No one could punch me, slap me, call me stupid, or pretend I wasn’t in the room. The other kids raced through books so they could get the completion stamp on their library card. I didn’t care about that stupid completion stamp. I didn’t want to race through books. I wanted books to walk slowly through me, stop, and touch my brain and my memory. If a book couldn’t do that, it probably wasn’t a very good book. Besides, it isn’t how much you read, it’s what you read. What I learned from books, from young Ben Franklin’s anger at his brother to Anne Frank’s longing for the way her life used to be, was that I wasn’t alone in my pain. All that caused me such anguish affected others, too, and that connected me to them and that connected me to my books. I loved everything about books. I loved that odd sensation of turning the final page, realizing the story had ended, and feeling that I was saying a last goodbye to a new friend.

He undid the lock and pulled open the cover to reveal a large stack of envelopes, each one labeled with a different name: Franklin Hobart, Brian Yancey, Everett Singer, Larry Steczynski…it was this last one he grabbed and pulled open, emptying its contents into his wallet and pockets. “Larry Steczynski?” I asked incredulously. Sage smiled. “You don’t think it suits me?” “Oh, I think you suits you perfectly. How many aliases do you have?” “I’m a bit of a collector.” I placed a hand on his wrist, stopping him as he transferred something into his wallet. “Does Larry Steczynski carry a black AmEx?” “He might.” “My mom doesn’t even carry a black AmEx.” “Apparently your mom doesn’t move in the same circles as Larry Steczynski.” “Sage,” Ben called from across the room. He had knelt down to gaze closely at a sculpted figurine that sat on an end table, and his voice broke with awe. “This...this is a real Michelangelo, isn’t it?” “Yeah, yeah it is.” “But it’s a Michelangelo!” “Yep.” “And that painting,” Ben said, nodding to a piece on the wall featuring a sketch of what looked like a somewhat cherubic version of Sage himself. “That’s a real Rubens?” “It is.” “It looks like you.” “Strong genetics in the family line,” Sage explained.