"For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise."

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

"None preaches better than the ant and she says nothing."

"We must all hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately."

"He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner."

"An undutiful Daughter will prove an unmanageable Wife."

"There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war...This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry."

"All would live long but none would be old."

"God heals and the doctor takes the fees."

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

"At 20 years of age the will reigns at 30 the wit at 40 the judgment."

"Today is yesterday's pupil."

"Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes."

"Ambition has its disappointments to sour us but never the good fortune to satisfy us."

"Never ruin an apology with an excuse."

"The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn't know how to read."

"He that drinks his cider alone, let him catch his horse alone."

"Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants."

"Creditors have better memories than debtors."

"Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed."

"Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of."

"If men are so wicked with religion what would they be without it?"

"God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'"

"Ohne Gedankenfreiheit gibt es keine Weisheit. Und ohne Redefreiheit keine A¶ffentliche Freiheit."

"All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move."

"A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought to have but little."

"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria."

"He that rises late must trot all day."

"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."

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."

"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75."

"I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one's temper and disturb one's quiet."

"Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow."

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

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

"Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."

"For my own Part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring Favours, but as paying Debts. In my Travels, and since my Settlement, I have received much Kindness from Men, to whom I shall never have any Opportunity of making the least direct Return. And numberless Mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our Services. Those Kindnesses from Men, I can therefore only Return on their Fellow Men; and I can only shew my Gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other Children and my Brethren. For I do not think that Thanks and Compliments, tho' repeated weekly, can discharge our real Obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator."

"Hunger is the best pickle."

"Success has ruined many a man."

"A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned."

"You may delay but time will not."

"We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information."

"Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas."

"The first mistake in public business is the going into it."

"I know not which lives more unnatural lives, obeying husbands, or commanding wives."

"Plough deep while sluggards sleep."

"Does't thou love life? Then do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of."

"Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel."

"Fatigue is the best pillow."

"A child thinks twenty shillings and twenty years can scarce ever be spent."