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Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father of the United States, was a polymath whose contributions spanned science, diplomacy, and politics. His statesmanship during the American Revolution and role in drafting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution established him as one of America's most revered historical figures.
"It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it."
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"Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom."
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"For want of a nail the shoe was lost for want of a shoe the horse was lost and for want of a horse the rider was lost being overtaken and slain by the enemy all for want of care about a horseshoe nail."
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"He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees."
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"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."
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"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
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"There is a difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him."
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"He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."
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"Thirteen virtues necessary for true success: temperance silence order resolution frugality industry sincerity justice moderation cleanliness tranquility chastity and humility."
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"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it."
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"A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather."
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"So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do."
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"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."
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"In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."
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"A wise man will desire no more than what he may get justly use soberly distribute cheerfully and leave con-tently."
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"We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."
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"Teach your child to hold his tongue He'll learn fast enough to speak."