Benjamin Quotes

Did not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I would choose to end my days in.

A full Belly brings forth every Evil.

We are not so sensible of the greatest Health as of the least Sickness.

He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.

An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.

A quarrelsome man has no good neighbours.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

Pardoning the Bad, is injuring the Good.

I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of Faults than I had imagined, but I had the Satisfaction of seeing them diminish.

The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars.

He that doth what he should not, shall feel what he would not.

Nothing preaches better than the act.

I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed.

Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.

All cats look gray in the dark.

He that drinks fast, pays slow.

A wicked Hero will turn his back to an innocent coward.

The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.

Virtues, of ... Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

If any man flatters me, I'll flatter him again; tho' he were my best Friend.

A full Belly makes a dull Brain: The Muses starve in a Cook's Shop.

Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

The poor man must walk to get meat for his stomach, the rich man to get a stomach to his meat.

Covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety.

I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.

He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say.

To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast in the very lap of fortune.

For Age and Want save while you may; No morning Sun lasts a whole day.

He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.

Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.

He that speaks ill of the mare will buy her.

Fear to do ill, and you need fear else.

The moral and religious system which Jesus Christ transmitted to us is the best the world has ever seen, or can see.

I came into the world under the sign of Saturn -- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays.

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part.

Snowy winter, a plentiful harvest.

If Pride leads the Van, Beggary brings up the Rear.

At the working man’s house, hunger looks in but dares not enter.

In the dark, all cats are grey.

An old young man, will be a young old man.

Chess is so interesting in itself, as not to need the view of gain to induce engaging in it; and thence it is never played for money

Since I cannot govern my own tongue, though within my own teeth, how can I hope to govern the tongue of others?

In prosperous fortunes be modest and wise, The greatest may fall, and the lowest may rise: But insolent People that fall in disgrace, Are wretched and nobody pities their Case.

The two most beautiful sights I have witnessed in my life are a full blown ship at sail and the round-bellied pregnant female.

A change of fortune hurts a wise man no more than a change of the moon.

The only certain things in life are death and taxes!

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter.

A man is sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.