Benjamin Franklin Quotes

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

Has President Bush exceeded his constitutional authority or acted illegally in authorizing wiretaps without a warrant? Benjamin Franklin would not have thought so.

I'm so proud of myself. I thought, 'I've got to learn about American history.' I literally took two months off and watched every documentary known to man. I really didn't know Benjamin Franklin was so cool.

I love the dignity in the name Philadelphia, but at heart, we're Philly.

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There is the sheer amount of Franklin's wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation's leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him.

The truth is that since the first book, I have wanted to emulate Benjamin Franklin and put together a healthy, wealthy and wise trilogy and so healthy was 'The 4-Hour Body,' wealthy was 'The 4-Hour Workweek' and then wise is 'The 4-Hour Chef.'

Benjamin Franklin maintained that every star is a sun, and every sun nourishes a 'chorus of worlds' just like ours.

[John] Adams never hid his jealousy and resentment of the other Founders, especially Benjamin Franklin.

My ideal man is Benjamin Franklin-the figure in American history most worthy of emulation ... Franklin is my ideal of a whole man. ... Where are the life-size-or even pint-size-Benjamin Franklins of today?

Historically, when Americans don't know what to do next, they go to Paris. Benjamin Franklin is like: 'What am I going to do now? I'll go to Paris!'

I'm often asked, 'Why didn't Benjamin Franklin ever become president?' My short, easy answer is: He died.

The myth that young people should leave the nest at 18, never to return, started with iconic American Benjamin Franklin.

Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead.

Benjamin Franklin was probably America’s first juvenile delinquent.

I've done a couple of films in Philadelphia, and it's a great, great town.

[Benjamin] Franklin may be a great philosopher, [John Adams] told his diary in 1779, but "as a Legislator in America he has done very little."

On the whole, I'd rather be in Philidelphia.

Reagan's half a disciple of Benjamin Franklin. He believes in early to bed.

It would be easy to assume that the open letter is a symptom of the Internet age. Such is not the case. In 1774, Benjamin Franklin wrote an open letter to the prime minister of Great Britain, Lord North - a satirical call for the imposition of martial law in the colonies.

Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."

As Benjamin Franklin said, 'Those things that hurt, instruct.' It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.

In France, where Franklin had lived from 1776 to 1785, he had won an extraordinary place in the public mind. The French had lionized him to the point of absurdity - or so at least his colleagues in the American mission thought.

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

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