Benjamin Franklin

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I have lived a long life and have found this rule remarkably reliable. I have also found that the man who prepares for both is considerably less anxious than the man who ignores them. I have written extensively on the management of money, the care of one's health, and the avoidance of...

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I wrote this in 1789, the year the new Constitution took effect and the year the French Revolution began. I was eighty-three and had outlived most of my generation. I had been a printer, a scientist, a diplomat, a postmaster, a founding father, and a constitutional convention...

In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. I wrote this in 1789 and was immediately accused of cynicism. I was not being cynical. I was being a printer, a diplomat, and a businessman: I was stating the constraints within which all plans must be made.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. A penny saved is a penny earned. He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. I helped write one and I negotiated the Treaty of Paris and I designed a stove that changed how Americans heated their homes. Happiness, I find, is in the catching.

Duplessis painted me in Paris in 1778. I was seventy-two years old and had been in France for two years, working to secure the alliance that would decide the war. The French loved me — they made medals of my face, put my portrait on snuff boxes, named their children after me. I wore a fur cap instead of a wig because I had no wig and it suited the role:...

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. I said this — or something like it — when we signed the Declaration of Independence. It was not merely a witticism. The British would indeed have hanged us if they had won. But it was also a statement of fact about how republics work: they require men who trust each other enough to take...

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. I said this at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The men in that room understood both senses perfectly — the political unity required, and the noose that awaited us if we failed.

We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither.

I flew a kite in a thunderstorm with a key on the string, and the key sparked, and we understood lightning. I have been told this was foolhardy. I say that the most foolish thing a man can do is refuse to test his hypotheses because the test might kill him.

I flew the kite in June 1752, during a thunderstorm. The kite had a pointed wire at the top. A hemp string connected to a silk string, held in the hand. A Leyden jar attached at the junction to collect any charge. A key on the hemp string.

When lightning struck near the kite — not the kite directly, that would have killed me — charge ran down the wet hemp...

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. I began as a printer's apprentice at twelve. I educated myself through borrowed books, reading by firelight after the shop closed. I then used that education to become, in succession, a scientist, inventor, diplomat, and founding father. The knowledge was the foundation of all of it. The money followed —...