Benjamin Franklin Quotes

The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish.

There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, but there's no road leading from the ridiculous to the sublime.

I finish so many books it's amazing. I'm also doing Rosetta Stone, learning some French.

I've never been in any country for more than four years, and I'm learning different languages all the time. It gives you a different attitude.

I speak English without an accent, and I speak Spanish without an accent. I really do have the best of both worlds.

I failed world geography, civics, Spanish and English. And when you fail Spanish and English, they do not consider you bilingual. They may call you bi-ignorant because you can't speak any language.

I was born in Paris, and my mother was a French teacher, but then I rebelled against my upbringing and studied Spanish in school. So now I just speak bad French and bad Spanish.

Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks.

I studied Hindi in school and that's come in handy.

If you can speak Spanish, then you can have a stronger connection with the residents of Los Angeles.

Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance than pedantry by her learning.

Every American child should grow up knowing a second language, preferably English.

The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge

What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor,' the prince said, 'is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous

A sense of absurdity interferes with my efforts to appear venerable.

When I see hipsters wearing Mao hats or Lenin T-shirts, I'm grateful. It's like truth-in-labeling. For now I know you are: Woefully ignorant, morally stunted, purposively asinine, or all three.

You don't know anything, but I know even less.

I want to find a genie in a bottle that can grant me three wishes. I want to be able to speak, read, write, and understand any language ever written or spoken, just any language throughout the history of man. That would be one of my wishes from the genie, so I would have to put "multilingual" on the resume, should I ever find the genie.

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.

It always shocked me how you could understand so many things and be such a complete idiot about so many others.

Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.

Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of 'systematically assisting Sisyphus's stealthy, syst-susceptible sister,' which is easier done than said.

We [the USA] do have a big nation's problem. We have the problem of a nation that's got two oceans, oceans on either side. People come from all across the globe and want to live here and they want to work here and they want to invest here. And that's a good thing. And they make up this country. But as a people, we [americans] are not highly skilled in languages. We're not highly skilled in knowledge of other cultures. And that's a problem.

The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation

There are two infinities: God and stupidity.