Quotes from Benjamin Franklin: An American Life - Walter Isaacson

Quotes from Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

• When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him.
• Knowledge, he realized, “was obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue.
• The other sins on his list were, in order: seeming uninterested, speaking too much about your own life, prying for personal secrets (“an unpardonable rudeness”), telling long and pointless stories (“old folks are most subject to this error, which is one chief reason their company is so often shunned”), contradicting or disputing someone directly, ridiculing or railing against things except in small witty doses (“it’s like salt, a little of which in some cases gives relish, but if thrown on by handfuls spoils all”), and spreading scandal (though he would later write lighthearted defenses of gossip)
• History is a tale, Franklin came to believe, not of immutable forces but of human endeavors.
• Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
• There was never a good knife made of bad steel.
• As Claude-Anne Lopez notes, “In colonial America it was sinful to look idle, in France it was vulgar to look busy.
• Love your enemies, for they will tell you your faults.
• Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you’ll miss many hard thumps.
• … a person who is too fearful will end up performing defensively and thus fail to seize offensive advantages.
• Industry and frugality are the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue.
• But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
• To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of suddenly growing rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.
• Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
• The most acceptable service to God is doing good to man.
• If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.
• There never was a good war or a bad peace.
• Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
• … one is obliged sometimes to give up some smaller points in order to obtain greater.
• … human felicity is produced . . . by little advantages that occur every day.
• …. people are more likely to admire your work if you’re able to keep them from feeling jealous of you.
• … the best way to serve God was doing good to others.
• Diligence is the mother of good luck.
• … slow and steady diligence is the true way to wealth.