Top 500 Benjamin Franklin Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “The way to be safe is never to be secure.”

— Benjamin Franklin

202. “How do you become better tomorrow? By improving yourself, the world is made better. Be not afraid of growing too slowly. Be afraid of standing still. Forget your mistakes, but remember what they taught you. So how do you become better tomorrow? By becoming better today.”

— Benjamin Franklin

203. “Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues.”

— Benjamin Franklin

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

— Benjamin Franklin

205. “He that cannot obey, cannot command.”

— Benjamin Franklin

206. “Moderation in all things – including moderation.”

— Benjamin Franklin

207. “Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep.”

— Benjamin Franklin

208. “Lend money to an enemy, and thou wilt gain him; lend to a friend, and thou wilt lose him.”

— Benjamin Franklin

209. “A word to the wise is enough, and many words won’t fill a bushel.”

— Benjamin Franklin

210. “Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; nothing more bondage than too much liberty.”

— Benjamin Franklin

211. “I would rather have it said, ‘He lived usefully,’ than, ‘He died rich.’”

— Benjamin Franklin

212. “Hope of gain lessens pain.”

— Benjamin Franklin

213. “The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.”

— Benjamin Franklin

214. “Creditors have better memories than debtors.”

— Benjamin Franklin

215. “Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.”

— Benjamin Franklin

216. “The handshake of the host affects the taste of the roast.”

— Benjamin Franklin

217. “A lie stands on one leg, truth on two.”

— Benjamin Franklin

218. “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”

— Benjamin Franklin

219. “Where there’s no law, there’s no bread.”

— Benjamin Franklin

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

— Benjamin Franklin

221. “Critics are our friends, they show us our faults.”

— Benjamin Franklin

222. “The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance.”

— Benjamin Franklin

223. “The sleeping fox catches no poultry.”

— Benjamin Franklin

224. “Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.”

— Benjamin Franklin

225. “To be humble to superiors is a duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”

— Benjamin Franklin

226. “Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.”

— Benjamin Franklin

227. “The doors of wisdom are never shut.”

— Benjamin Franklin

228. “A little neglect may breed great mischief.”

— Benjamin Franklin

229. “Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.”

— Benjamin Franklin

230. “A virtuous heretic shall be saved before a wicked Christian.”

— Benjamin Franklin

231. “If time be of all things most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality, since lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough always proves little enough. Let us then be up and doing, and doing to a purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.”

— Benjamin Franklin

232. “Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords.”

— Benjamin Franklin

233. “And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?”

— Benjamin Franklin

234. “It is a strange anomaly that men could be careful to insure their houses, their ships, their merchandise, and yet neglect to insure their lives – surely the most important of all to their families, and more subject to loss.”

— Benjamin Franklin

235. “Great talkers, little doers.”

— Benjamin Franklin

236. “A man of knowledge, like a rich soil, feeds, if not a world of corn, a world of weeds.”

— Benjamin Franklin

237. “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power.”

— Benjamin Franklin

238. “To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.”

— Benjamin Franklin

239. “Keep conscience clear, then never fear.”

— Benjamin Franklin

240. “I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of Faults than I had imagined, but I had the Satisfaction of seeing them diminish.”

— Benjamin Franklin

241. “Hunger never saw bad bread.”

— Benjamin Franklin

242. “To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”

— Benjamin Franklin

243. “Women and wine, game and deceit, make the wealth small, and the want great.”

— Benjamin Franklin

244. “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.”

— Benjamin Franklin

245. “Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues. Be active in business, that temptation may miss her aim; the bird that sits is easily shot.”

— Benjamin Franklin

246. “I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.”

— Benjamin Franklin

247. “The man who does things makes mistakes, but he doesn’t make the biggest mistake of all-doing nothing.”

— Benjamin Franklin

248. “Without justice, courage is weak.”

— Benjamin Franklin

249. “The best way to help the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their own poverty.”

— Benjamin Franklin

250. “Love your Neighbour; yet don’t pull down your Hedge.”

— Benjamin Franklin