I hope you find what you are looking for. And maybe discover something you had no idea about!
There are 5 quotes matching Benjamin Franklin in the collection:
Hereafter, if you should observe on occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their Due, and confess more fault than you can justly be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it a Great Captain.
Benjamin Franklin
Advice to John Paul Jones, in letter 5 July 1780.
What is the use of a new-born infant?
Benjamin Franklin
According to the Baron von Grimm, while Franklin was the American Plenipotentiary to France and was asked what was the use of a balloon. Estimated to be at the ascension of Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes in the western outskirts of Paris on 21 November 1783. The quote is extensively explored in Chapin, S. (1985). A Legendary Bon Mot?: Franklin's "What Is The Good of a Newborn Baby?" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 129(3), 278-290.
Perhaps the history of the errors on mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting that that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field, the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities.
Benjamin Franklin
Report of Dr. , and Other Commissioners, Charged by the King of France, with the Examination of the Animal Magnetism, as Now Practiced in Paris, 1784.
Five Thousand Balloons capable of raising two Men each, would not cost more than Five Ships of the Line: And where is the Prince who can afford so to cover his Country with Troops for its Defense, as that Ten Thousand Men descending from the Clouds, might not in many Places do an infinite deal of Mischief, before a Force could be brought together to repel them?
Benjamin Franklin
U.S. Ambassador to the French court
Letter to Jan Ingenhousz, 16 January 1784. Entire letter is online at U.S. National Archives founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0310.
I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him …
For in truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America.
Benjamin Franklin
In a letter to Sarah Bache, 26 January 1794.
Don’t see what you were looking for? Try the home page, or do a super search: