Benjamin Franklin

To strangers he was cold and reserved; but where he was intimate, no man indulged to more pleasantry and good humour.

With these sentiments he left England; but when, on his arrival in America, he found the war begun, and that there was no receding, no man entered more warmly into the interests of what he then considered as his country, in opposition to…

As it is in my power, as far as my testimony will be regarded, to refute this charge, I think it due to our friendship to do it.

Franklin's hand, in conjunction with his brethren of the learned committee, that compound of fraud and folly was unveiled, and received its death-wound.

It is with a melancholy regret I think of his death; but to death we are all bound by the irreversible order of nature, and in looking forward to it, there is comfort in being able to reflect--that we have not lived in vain, and that all…

Yet had I gone at 70, it would have cut off 12 of the most active years of my life, employed too in matters of the greatest importance; but whether I have been doing good or mischief, is for time to discover.

If the treaty cannot be made as much to your advantage as to ours, don't make it.

But if I were in his place, and not otherwise instructed, I should be apt to say, Take your own time, gentlemen.

It is comfortable to have a good opinion of one's self, and of every thing that belongs to us, to think one's own religion, king, and wife, the best of all possible wives, kings, and religions.

I wish old England were as happy in its government, but I do not see it.

They have no profitable appointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their expences, so that having no chance for great places and enormous salaries or pensions, as in some countries, there is no…

They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people's business and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed.

Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty.

They are of the people, and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable pre-eminence than the different grains of sand in an hour-glass.

But its members are chosen annually, and cannot be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven, and any of them may be recalled at any time, whenever their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their…

If the congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers.

If it were communicable by descent, it must also be divisible among the descendants, and the more ancient the family the less would be found existing in any one branch of it; to say nothing of the greater chance of unlucky interruptions.

I hold with you that it was wrong; may I add, that all descending honours are wrong and absurd; that the honour of virtuous actions appertains only to him that performs them, and is in its nature incommunicable.

But those who are good enough to try this way of raising their children are often not able to pay the expence, so that the prisons of Paris are crouded with wretched fathers and mothers confined pour mois de nourice; though it is laudably…

May the mode descend to the lower ranks, till it becomes no longer the custom to pack their infants away, as soon as born, to the Enfants Trouvés, with the careless observation, that the king is better able to maintain them.

Yet since Rousseau, with admirable eloquence pleaded for the rights of children to their mother's milk, the mode has changed a little, and some ladies of quality now suckle their infants and find milk enough.

Is it right to encourage this monstrous deficiency of natural affection?

With courage undaunted may I face my last day, And when I am gone may the better sort say, In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow, He's gone--and not left behind him his fellow.

Was it not worthy of his care, that the world should say he was an honest and a good man?