Benjamin Franklin

[ After the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, when asked by a woman, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” :] A republic, if you can keep it.

[ Responding to skepticism about the usefulness of the first balloon flights :] What good is a new-born baby?

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have often and often in the course of the Session [ of the Constitutional Convention], and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that [sun painted] behind the [chair of the] President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.

The King of France’s Picture set with Four hundred and Eight Diamonds, I give to my Daughter Sarah Bache requesting however that she would not form any of those Diamonds into Ornaments either for herself or Daughters and thereby introduce or countenance the expensive vain and useless Fashion of wearing Jewels in this Country.

I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. . . . The turkey . . . is a much more respectable bird.

That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved.

Old Boys have their Playthings as well as Young

The grand Leap of the Whale in that Chace up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed by all who have seen it, as one of the finest Spectacles in Nature!

None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault or acknowledge himself in error.

Many a long dispute among Divines may be thus abridg’d:

Here comes the orator with his flood of words and his drop of reason.

Certainlie these things agree,

Opportunity is the great bawd.

Avarice and happiness never saw each other.

Blame-all and praise-all are two blockheads.

Lawyers, Preachers, and Tomtits Eggs, there are more of them hatch’d than come to perfection.

God works wonders now and then;

Answ. Commend her among her Female Acquaintances.

The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; like the Cover of an old Book, its Contents torn out, and stript of its Lettering and Gilding, lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost: for it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, in a new & more perfect Edition, corrected and amended by the Author.

I am about Courting a Girl I have had but little Acquaintance with; how shall I come to a Knowledge of her Fawlts? and whether she has the Virtues I imagine she has?

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

A fat kitchen, a lean will.

Is there anything men take more pains about than to render themselves unhappy?

When you speak to a man, look on his eyes; when he speaks to you, look on his mouth.

Pride is said to be the last vice the good man gets clear of.

Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt.

Praise to the undeserving is severe satire.

Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.

When man and woman die, as poets sung, / His heart’s the last part moves, her last, the tongue.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.

To he proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments.

Historians relate not so much what is done as what they would have believed.

Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.