30 Benjamin Franklin Quotes, Most of Them Borrowed on Purpose
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a printer, postmaster, scientist, diplomat and the only man to sign all four founding documents of the United States. He left school at ten, was apprenticed to his brother's print shop, and ran away to Philadelphia at seventeen. Poor Richard's Almanack, published annually from 1732 under a pen name, made him wealthy enough to retire from business at forty-two and spend the rest of his life on electricity, public institutions and revolution. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals and the lending library, and patented none of them.
Photo: Joseph-Siffred Duplessis — Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Franklin was honest about his method, which is more than most aphorists manage. In the Autobiography he explains that the proverbs filling Poor Richard's Almanack were the wisdom of many ages and nations gathered up, and that his contribution was mostly compression. He took sprawling folk sayings and cut them until they clicked. That is why so many of his lines feel older than 1732: several of them are.
Poor Richard on time and work
Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*, 1735
Lost time is never found again. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Little strokes fell great oaks. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Diligence is the mother of good luck. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
The used key is always bright. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
On money, which he understood better than most
Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
On people
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*, 1735
Fish and visitors stink after three days. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Half a truth is often a great lie. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
On character and excuses
Well done is better than well said. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade? — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
A good conscience is a continual Christmas. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Genius without education is like silver in the mine. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
Wish not so much to live long as to live well. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*
From the letters and public writing
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. — letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789
There never was a good war or a bad peace. — letter to Josiah Quincy, 1783
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. — Pennsylvania Assembly reply to the Governor, 1755
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. — *Poor Richard's Almanack*, 1738
I have never entered into any controversy in defence of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. — Autobiography
Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world. — Autobiography, opening
The liberty line has had a harder life than any of the others. Franklin wrote it in a dispute between the Pennsylvania Assembly and the Penn family over taxing proprietary land to fund frontier defence, not as a general principle about personal freedom against the state. It is now quoted in arguments about surveillance and airport security, contexts he could not have imagined, and the original meaning is almost the reverse of the usual modern use.
Five he is credited with wrongly
- "A penny saved is a penny earned." The best-known Franklin line is not his wording. Poor Richard has *A penny saved is twopence clear* and, elsewhere, *a penny saved is a penny got*. The tidy modern version came later.
- "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." No Franklin text contains it. It appears in the twentieth century and was attached to him afterwards.
- "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." Circulated as Franklin on classroom posters worldwide. It is not in his writings; the idea traces to the Chinese philosopher Xunzi.
- "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." A modern paraphrase of the real line about emptying your purse into your head, now quoted as if it were the original.
- "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Attributed to Franklin at the signing of the Declaration. The story first appears decades later and no contemporary record supports it.
Franklin would probably not have minded. He published the almanack under the invented name Richard Saunders, complete with a fictional nagging wife, and in 1758 gathered the best proverbs into a preface called *The Way to Wealth*, presented as a speech by an old man quoting Poor Richard to a crowd. Three layers of borrowed voice, and he says so on the page.
Did Benjamin Franklin write "a penny saved is a penny earned"?
Not in that form. Poor Richard's Almanack has "A penny saved is twopence clear". The familiar wording is a later smoothing that stuck to his name.
Who was Poor Richard?
A character. Franklin published the almanack as Richard Saunders, a poor astrologer with a wife who nagged him about money, and kept the pretence going for twenty-five years.
Did Franklin invent the proverbs in the almanack?
Mostly not, and he said so. He collected sayings from many ages and nations and rewrote them to be shorter and sharper. The compression is the authorship.
Sources
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