Benjamin Franklin
Never confuse motion with action.
Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.
Don't throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.
Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.
Danger is sauce for prayers.
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.
Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.
Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones - with ingratitude.
It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.
In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
The discontented man finds no easy chair.
All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.
He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.
He that won't be counseled can't be helped.
Where liberty is, there is my country.
If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.
Fatigue is the best pillow.
Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.
For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.
He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.
The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
He that rises late must trot all day.
Creditors have better memories than debtors.
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.
Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.
If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.
Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?
He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
An egg today is better than a hen to-morrow.
He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.
Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.
Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.
Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.
You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?
It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
He that speaks much, is much mistaken.
I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
I guess I don't so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.