100+ Benjamin Franklin Quotes About Life That Will Change the Way You Think

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

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

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.

Fools need advice most, but wise men only are the better for it.

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.

Common sense without education is better than education without common sense.

If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.

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

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

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Lost time is never found again.

You may delay, but time will not.

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

One today is worth two tomorrows.

There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

Some people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until seventy five.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.

Time is money.

When the well is dry we know the value of water.

What we call time enough always proves little enough.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

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

He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.

When you are in debt, then you are a slave.

Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.

It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it is.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.

Drive thy business, let not that drive thee.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

There are no gains, without pains.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Well done is better than well said.

Industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect.

Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never.

At the working man’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.

It is the working man who is the happy man; it is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

Never confuse motion with action.

Honesty is the best policy.

What you seem to be, be really.

Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended.

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

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

Never ruin an apology with an excuse.

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

Don’t throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass.

A right heart exceeds all.

Nothing was useful which was not honest.

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

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

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

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

A true friend is the best possession.

In love as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken.

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

He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to your friend, your heart.

He that’s content, hath enough; he that complains, has too much.

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

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

Wish not so much to live long as to live well.

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

Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.

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

He that can have patience can have what he will.

Those who laugh often never grow old.

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

Change is the only constant in life; one’s ability to adapt to those changes will determine your success in life.

The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished.

Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes.

There was never a good knife made of bad steel.

Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Where liberty is, there is my country.

Security without liberty is called prison.

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power.

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

We must, indeed, all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.

Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.

It is better to take many injuries than to give one.

Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

The world is run by the people who show up.

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.

Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.

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

God helps those who help themselves.

A place for everything, everything in its place.

When in doubt, don’t.

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

Little strokes fell great oaks.

Fish and visitors stink after three days.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Hide not your talents; they for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.