Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Quotes

• Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

• If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

• At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty the wit; at forty the judgement.

• By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be growing old.

• Love your enemies; for they shall tell you all your faults.

• Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.

• Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults in the first.

• Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

• Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

• To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

• Fish and visitors smell in three days.

• Wish not so much to live long as to live well.

• If you wouldst live long, live well, for folly and wickedness shorten life.

• If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.

• Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

• If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.

• Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.

• If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.

• Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?

• Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.