Benjamin Franklin Quotes

In Greece wise men speak and fools decide.

Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.

Wise men argue causes; fools decide them.

A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice.

A fool may sometimes give a wise man counsel

Send a wise man and don't advise him. He should know what to do.

I try to be very smart and use wisdom about everything.

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

No one but a fool is always right.

There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool.

It takes a wise man to recognize a wise man.

Man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy.

... smart but not wise.

Intelligence divorced from judgment produces nothing but foolishness.

Do not seek advice from the ignorant.

The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.

Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.

The least foolish is wise.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

It is a wise man who knows where courage ends and stupidity begins.

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it.

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.