BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Apostle of liberty.

I found him [Benjamin Franklin] social but not talkative, and when he spoke something useful dropped from his tongue.

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public …. A man must be his own trumpeter—he must write or dictate paragraphs of praise in the newspapers; he must dress, have a retinue and equipage; he must ostentatiously publish to the world his own writings with his name, make the mob stare and gape, and perpetuate his fame.

[Benjamin Franklin's life was:] ... one continued insult to good manners and decency.

That I have no friendship for Franklin I avow. That I am incapable of having any with a man of his moral sentiments I avow. As far as fate shall compel me to sit with him in public affairs, I shall treat him with decency and perfect impartiality.

Of the six men who have done most to make America the wonder and the joy she is to all of us, not one could be the citizen of a government so constituted; for Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, certainly the three mightiest leaders in our early history, were heretics in their day, Deists, as men called them; and Garrison and Lincoln and Sumner, certainly the three mightiest in these later times, would all be disfranchised by the proposed amendment. Lincoln could not have taken the oath of office had such a clause been in the Constitution.

… the evil genius of the revolution.

… that insidious man

I was sitting by Dr. Franklin who perceived that I was not insensitive to these mutilations.

Will Doctor Franklin be so good as to peruse it and suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?

I succeed him. No one can replace him.

I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves.

Le Ambassador Electrique

Philadelphia: The city where Washington slept and Franklin slept around.

… the most corrupt of all corrupt men.

Benjamin Franklin was probably America’s first juvenile delinquent.

He seized the lightning from Heaven and the scepter from the Tyrants.

If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

Printers are educated in the Belief that when Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter. Hence they cheerfully serve all contending Writers that pay them well, without regarding on which side they are of the Question in Dispute... .It is likewise as unreasonable what some assert, That Printers ought not to print anything but what they approve, since if all of that Business should make such a Resolution, and abide by it, an End would thereby be put to Free Writing, and the World would afterwards have nothing to read but what happen'd to be the Opinions of Printers.

… when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected?

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

What more valuable than Gold? Diamonds. Than Diamonds? Virtue.

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such;… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution….It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.

Those [German immigrants] who come hither are generally the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own nation …. They will soon so out-number us … that we will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.