Benjamin Franklin: Trending quotes (page 5)

Benjamin Franklin

Quoted by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1778 https://books.google.de/books?id=nuINAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA199&dq=tool-making (1791).
Decade unclear

Animals

“The Way to ſee by Faith is to ſhut the Eye of Reaſon: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

"July. VII Month.", Poor Richard's Almanack (1758), Philadelphia: B. Frankin and D. Hall
Poor Richard's Almanack

Faith , Way , Appearance

“If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

Poor Richard's Almanack (1736), http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/frapos/index.html November
Poor Richard's Almanack

“I think opinions should be judged of by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous, which I hope is the case with me.”

Benjamin Franklin

Letter to his father, 13 April 1738, printed in Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia, 1834), volume 1, p. 233. Also quoted in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) by Walter Isaacson
Epistles

Hope , Thinking

“Each man has two countries, I think: His own, and France.”

Benjamin Franklin

Henri de Bornier, La Fille de Roland, act III, scene ii, p. 65 (1875): "Tout homme a deux pays, le sien et puis la France!"
Also misattributed to Thomas Jefferson in 1880 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940CE2DB143FEE3ABC4151DFB166838B699FDE
Misattributed

Thinking , Country

“A penny saved is a penny got.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

Preface, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)
Poor Richard's Almanack

“Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro’ a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct Course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left, so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst.”

Benjamin Franklin

Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania reported in Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907), vol. 10, pp. 57–58.
Decade unclear

Way , Drink , Decision , Time

“Governor Thomas was so pleas'd with the Construction of this Stove, as describ'd in it, that he offer'd to give me a Patent for the sole Vending of them for a Term of Years; but I declin'd it from a Principle which has ever weigh'd with me on such Occasions, viz. That as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of Others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.”

Benjamin Franklin

Part III, p. 98.
The Autobiography (1818)

“In 200 years will people remember us as traitors or heros? That is the question we must ask.”

Benjamin Franklin

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (March 16th, 1775).
Epistles

People , Question

“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.”

Benjamin Franklin

Letter to Joseph Huey (6 June 1753); published in Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, p. 144.
Epistles

Men , God , Children , Travel

“Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely ford that see the shallows.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

Poor Richard's Almanack (1743)
Poor Richard's Almanack

Men

“Here Skugg lies snug
As a bug in a rug.”

Benjamin Franklin

Letter to Miss Georgiana Shipley (September, 1772); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Epistles

“This Library afforded me the Means of Improvement by constant Study, for which I set apart an Hour or two each Day; and thus repair'd in some Degree the Loss of the Learned Education my Father once intended for me. Reading was the only Amusement I allow'd myself. I spent no time in Taverns, Games, or Frolics of any kind. And my Industry in my Business continu'd as indefatigable as it was necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin

Part II, p. 64.
The Autobiography (1818)

Education , Game , Business , Study

“We are a kind of posterity in respect to them.”

Benjamin Franklin

Letter to William Strahan (1745); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Epistles

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”

Benjamin Franklin

As quoted in Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 22.
Decade unclear
Variant: Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

“Upon one of his [George Whitefield's] Arrivals from England at Boston, he wrote to me that he should come soon to Philadelphia, but knew not where he could lodge when there …. My Answer was; You know my House, if you can make shift with its scanty Accommodations you will be most heartily welcome. He replied, that if I made that kind of Offer for Christ's sake, I should not miss of a Reward. And I return'd, Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake. One of our common Acquaintance jocosely remark'd, that knowing it to be the Custom of the Saints, when they receiv'd any favor, to shift the Burden of the Obligation from off their own Shoulders, and place it in Heaven, I had contriv'd to fix it on Earth.”

Benjamin Franklin

Part III, p. 89.
The Autobiography (1818)

Christ , Housing

“Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years.”

Benjamin Franklin

Letter to Washington (5 March 1780); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Epistles

“What is the good of a newborn baby?”

Benjamin Franklin

Widely attributed response to a questioner doubting the usefulness of hot air balloons. See Seymor L. Chapin, "A Legendary Bon Mot?: Franklin's 'What is the Good of a Newborn Baby?'", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 129:3 (September 1985), pp. 278–290. Chapin argues (pp. 286–287) that the "evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he said something rather different" and that the attributed quotation is "a probably much older adage".
Attributed

Baby

“The art of concluding from experience and observation consists in evaluating probabilities, in estimating if they are high or numerous enough to constitute proof. This type of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than one might think. It demands a great sagacity generally above the power of common people. The success of charlatans, sorcerors, and alchemists — and all those who abuse public credulity — is founded on errors in this type of calculation.”

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier, Rapport des commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme animal (1784), as translated in "The Chain of Reason versus the Chain of Thumbs", Bully for Brontosaurus (1991) by Stephen Jay Gould,. p. 195.
Decade unclear

People , Art , Error , Thinking

“[M]ankind are all formed by the same Almighty being, alike objects of his Care & equally designed for the Enjoyment of Happiness the Christian Religion teaches us to believe & the Political Creed of America fully coincides with the Position.”

Benjamin Franklin

Petition from the Pennsylvania Society (1790)

Religion , Happiness