Top 500 Benjamin Franklin Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise.”

— Benjamin Franklin

302. “Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.”

— Benjamin Franklin

303. “Doing an injury puts you below your enemy; revenging one make you but even with him; forgiving it sets you above him.”

— Benjamin Franklin

304. “We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.”

— Benjamin Franklin

305. “Democracy is like having two wolves and a lamb decide what is for dinner.”

— Benjamin Franklin

306. “Masonic labor is purely a labor of love. He who seeks to draw Masonic wages in gold and silver will be disappointed. The wages of a Mason are in the dealings with one another; sympathy begets sympathy, kindness begets kindness, helpfulness begets helpfulness, and these are the wages of a Mason.”

— Benjamin Franklin

307. “Every pot must sit on its own bottom.”

— Benjamin Franklin

308. “The best tranquilizer is a clear conscience.”

— Benjamin Franklin

309. “You can’t tell anyone anything. You have to teach people for them to remember. Let the person experience what you are teaching and they will learn.”

— Benjamin Franklin

310. “When passion rules, she never rules wisely.”

— Benjamin Franklin

311. “He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face. – Ben Franklin.”

— Benjamin Franklin

312. “The problem with common sense is, it isn’t.”

— Benjamin Franklin

313. “Clean your finger before you point at my spots.”

— Benjamin Franklin

314. “Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”

— Benjamin Franklin

315. “Wisdom is in measured routine. Three naps a day will keep you fit, nine breakfasts before noon, spin until you fall on your back, and thrust your face into a nettle plant. Drink at least five cups of a mare’s urine and look upon your self in a silver mirror while you hold your air in your chest.”

— Benjamin Franklin

316. “A man in a passion, rides a mad horse.”

— Benjamin Franklin

317. “Learn of the skillful; he that teaches himself, has a fool for his master.”

— Benjamin Franklin

318. “If you would not be laughed at, be the first to laugh at yourself.”

— Benjamin Franklin

319. “There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking.”

— Benjamin Franklin

320. “I don’t believe in stereotypes. I prefer to hate people on a more personal basis.”

— Benjamin Franklin

321. “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”

— Benjamin Franklin

322. “Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried with fewer tensions and more tolerance.”

— Benjamin Franklin

323. “Quarrels never could last long, if on one side only lay the wrong.”

— Benjamin Franklin

324. “A penny saved is twopence dear; A pin a day ’s a groat a year.”

— Benjamin Franklin

325. “Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”

— Benjamin Franklin

326. “Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all.”

— Benjamin Franklin

327. “Serving God is doing good to man, but praying is thought an easier service and therefore more generally chosen.”

— Benjamin Franklin

328. “A lonely man on a rainy night who cannot read.”

— Benjamin Franklin

329. “Drive your business. Let not your business drive you.”

— Benjamin Franklin

330. “If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.”

— Benjamin Franklin

331. “A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.”

— Benjamin Franklin

332. “If you’d be beloved, make yourself amiable. A true friend is the best possession.”

— Benjamin Franklin

333. “Don’t cry over spilled milk.”

— Benjamin Franklin

334. “O powerful goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favours to me.”

— Benjamin Franklin

335. “Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius.”

— Benjamin Franklin

336. “He that rises late must trot all day.”

— Benjamin Franklin

337. “Read much, but not too many books.”

— Benjamin Franklin

338. “Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.”

— Benjamin Franklin

339. “In the dark, all cats are grey.”

— Benjamin Franklin

340. “Are you angry that others disappoint you? Remember you cannot depend upon yourself.”

— Benjamin Franklin

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

— Benjamin Franklin

342. “A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.”

— Benjamin Franklin

343. “Observe all men, thyself most.”

— Benjamin Franklin

344. “There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever.”

— Benjamin Franklin

345. “The greatest inventions are those inquiries which tend to increase the power of man over matter.”

— Benjamin Franklin

346. “Originality is the art of concealing your sources.”

— Benjamin Franklin

347. “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.”

— Benjamin Franklin

348. “If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.”

— Benjamin Franklin

349. “A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.”

— Benjamin Franklin

350. “If thou hast wit and learning, add to it wisdom and modesty.”

— Benjamin Franklin