Benjamin Franklin

Bekannte Zitate von Benjamin Franklin

Observe all men, thyself most.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness.

When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart's the last part moves, her last, the tongue.

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

Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.

Nine men in ten are would be suicides.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.

Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.

The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

Honesty is the best policy.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

I saw few die of hunger of eating, a hundred thousand.

God helps those who help themselves.

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

Hunger is the best pickle.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

Remember that credit is money.

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

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

Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Time is money.

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

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

A place for everything, everything in its place.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

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

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

God works wonders now and then Behold a lawyer, an honest man.

Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.

I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

At twenty years of age the will reigns at thirty, the wit and at forty, the judgment.

Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.

Fatigue is the best pillow.