Benjamin Franklin [1706-1790]
“[Our government] can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”
“[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”
“Honesty is the best policy.”
“[T]here was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.”
“While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us...”
“If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins...”
“Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will...”
“Distrust & caution are the parents of security.”
“If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.”
“Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.”
“Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”
“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”
“Where there is hunger, law is not regarded; and where law is not regarded, there will be hunger.”
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
“Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.”
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
“Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.”
“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self...”
“How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.”
“Remember me affectionately to good Dr. Price and to the honest heretic Dr. Priestly. I do not call him honest by way of distinction; for I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. ...Do not, however, mistake me. It is not to my good friend's heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary, 'tis his honesty that has brought upon him the character of heretic.”
Socialism:
“All Property indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of publick Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man for the Conservation of the Individual & the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire & live among Savages. — He can have no right to the Benefits of Society who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”
“If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.”
“Lighthouses are more useful than churches.”
“But I was scarce 15 when, after doubting by turns of several Points as I found them disputed in the different Books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself...
If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.”
“We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.
“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and His Religion, as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to His divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon...
“Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”
“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”
“In the affairs of this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it.”
“There was never a bad peace or a good war...”
“All Wars are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones.”