Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklinwas one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A renowned polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions. He facilitated many civic organizations, including...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth17 January 1706
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
In other men we faults can spy,/ And blame the mote that dims their eye;/ Each little speck and blemish find;/ To our own stronger errors blind.
None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in an error.
When men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.
A new truth is a truth, an old error is an error.
When I reflect, as I frequently do, upon the felicity I have enjoyed, I sometimes say to myself, that were the offer made me, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask, should be the privilege of an author, to correct in a second edition, certain errors of the first.
What signifies knowing the names, if you know not the nature of things.
To the discontented man no chair is easy
Yet, in buying Goods, 'tis best to pay ready Money, because,
Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
What pains our Justice takes his faults to hide, With half that pains sure he might cure 'em quite
Turn Turk Tim, and renounce thy Faith in Words as well as Actions: Is it worse to follow Mahomet than the Devil?
You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.
You may be more happy than Princes, if you will be more virtuous.