Benjamin Franklin

All we want is order, discipline, and a few cannon.

At present we are like the separate filaments of flax before the thread is formed, without strength, because without connection; but UNION would make us strong, and even formidable.

Though the great should neither help nor join us; though they should even oppose our uniting, from some mean views of their own, yet, if we resolve upon it, and it please God to inspire us with the necessary prudence and vigour, it may be…

Were this union formed, were we once united, thoroughly armed and disciplined, was every thing in our power done for our security, as far as human means and foresight could provide, we might then, with more propriety, humbly ask the…

The very fame of our strength and readiness would be a means of discouraging our enemies; for it is a wise and true saying, that one sword often keeps another in the scabbard.

The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war.

They, that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked, than the supine, secure and negligent.

But I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitutions as sleep.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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

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…

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.

Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty.

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.

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…

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

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.

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