A statesman, diplomat, political philosopher, scientist, inventor, writer, printer, publisher, and humorist, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was the original model of American ingenuity. A drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, he went on to become the nation’s first Postmaster General and the first US ambassador to France. An outspoken abolitionist from the late 1750s, he spent his twilight years, from 1785 to 1788, serving as governor of Pennsylvania. As a scientist, Franklin was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his studies of electricity and naming the current still known as the Gulf Stream. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, and bifocals.

Franklin found success as a newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at age 23. He achieved financial security through Poor Richard's Almanac, an annual compendium with weather forecasts, astronomical and astrological information, and poems and proverbs, which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Saunders and published continually from 1732 to 1758. Today, more than two centuries after his death, Benjamin Franklin remains one of America’s most influential, respected, and beloved Founding Fathers. He has been honored as the face of the hundred-dollar bill and the namesake of many towns, counties, educational institutions, and corporations. For his emphasis on practical values and aspirational virtues, his opposition to authoritarianism, his understanding of success, and his ability to make us both laugh and think, Franklin remains widely quoted. Below is a collection of some of his most memorable and impactful words.

Quotes from Benjamin Franklin on practical values

• “Haste makes waste.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

•  “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “A true friend is the best possession.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Who is strong? He that can conquer his bad habits.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Speak little, do much.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Well done is better than well said.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Would you live with ease, Do what you ought, and not what you please.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “Lost time is never found again.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “He's a fool that makes his doctor his heir.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Teach your child to hold his tongue; he'll learn fast enough to speak.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Visits should be short, like a winters day, Lest you're too troublesome hasten away.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

•  “To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Better slip with foot than tongue.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Hide not your Talents, they for Use were made. What’s a Sun-Dial in the shade!” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “When the well is dry we know the value of water.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• “He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “If you will not hear reason, she'll rap your knuckles.” (The Way to Wealth)

•  “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “Never confuse Motion with Action.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

•  “In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “Look before, or you’ll find yourself behind.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

•  “One today is worth two tomorrows.”  (The Way to Wealth) 

Quotes from Benjamin Franklin on aspirational virtues  

• “Wish not so much to live long as to live well.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “Fools need advice most, but wise men only are the better for it.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin)

•  “In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin)

•  “It is better to take many injuries than to give one.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “What more valuable than Gold? Diamonds. Than Diamonds? Virtue.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

•  “Don't value a man for the Quality he is of, but for the Qualities he possesses.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “Great Modesty often hides great Merit.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

•  “Nothing was useful which was not honest.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin)

•  “I grew convinc'd that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin)

•  “It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection... I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin) 

• “Never ruin an apology with an excuse.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.”  (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• “Pardoning the Bad is injuring the Good.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you’ll miss many hard thumps.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life) 

• “A right Heart exceeds all.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “What you seem to be, be really.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin) 

• “Don’t throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack’d, and never well mended.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac) 

• “When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life) 

• “There was never a good knife made of bad steel.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

Quotes from Benjamin Franklin on liberty, justice, and politics

• “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

• "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power." (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

• "Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech." (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

• “The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “The most dangerous hypocrite in a Commonwealth is one who leaves the gospel for the sake of the law. A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law.” (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)

• “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations get corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns." (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• “Few in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• “We may make these times better, if we better ourselves.” (The Way to Wealth)

Quotes from Benjamin Franklin on wealth and success

• “He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “There are no gains, without pains.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “For life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it.” (The Morals of Chess)

•  “Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin)

• “Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “He that's content, hath enough; He that complains, has too much.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it is.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “The poor have little, beggars none, the rich too much, enough not one.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

• “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.” (Autobiography Collection: Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, and Benjamin Franklin)

• “He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing” (The Way to Wealth)

• “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” (The Way to Wealth) 

• “Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “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.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “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.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “Beware of little expenses; A small leak will sink a great ship.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “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.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “At the working man’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “Drive thy business, let not that drive thee.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “Industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect.” (The Way to Wealth)

• “There will be sleeping enough in the grave.” (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)

• “If you wou’d not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write
  things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” (Poor Richard’s Almanac)