Benjamin Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and the state in which you will find solid happiness.

God works wonders now and then;
Behold a lawyer, an honest man.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain — and most fools do.

A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.

There are three faithful friends — an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom — and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.