Michelle > Michelle's Quotes

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, His precepts!”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Well done is better than well said.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Never confuse Motion with Action.”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“...but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D ...: Comprising a Series of Letters on Miscellaneous, Literary, and Political Subjects ...

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn't know how to read.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move. ”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.

[For the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 1789]”
― Benjamin Franklin, Writings: The Autobiography / Poor Richard’s Almanack / Bagatelles, Pamphlets, Essays & Letters

“In the Affairs of this World Men are saved, not by Faith,
but by the Lack of it.”
― Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood / The Busy-Body / Early Writings

“Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“A good example is the best sermon.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Security without liberty is called prison.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.”
― Benjamin Franklin