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I know as well as thee that I am no poet born It is a trade, I never learnt nor indeed could learn If I make verses-'tis in spite Of nature and my stars I write.

Benjamin Franklin

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Benjamin Franklin
Age: 84 †
Born: 1706
Born: January 17
Died: 1790
Died: April 17
Autobiographer
Chess Player
Designer
Dilettante
Diplomat
Economist
Editor
Freemason
Inventor
Journalist
Librarian
Musician
Physicist
Boston
Massachusetts
Silence Dogood
Ben Franklin
The First American
Franklin
Poor Richard
Writing
Poet
Make
Stars
Never
Learn
Learnt
Born
Verses
Write
Spite
Nature
Thee
Wells
Indeed
Well
Trade

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There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
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It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.
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Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.
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The happy State of Matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting Foundation of Comfort and Love . . . the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion.
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Governments having failed the people, the people are entirely justified in assuming for themselves an essential role in government. Where a government takes proper measures to protect the people under its care, such a proceeding might have been thought both unnecessary and unjustifiable: But here it is quite the Reverse.
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Who is wise? He that learns from everyone.
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Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.
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Fear to do ill, and you need fear else.
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Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessities.
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An assembly of great men is the greatest fool upon earth.
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The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.
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Wine is constant proof that God loves us and likes to see us happy.
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History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion, from its usefulness to the public the advantage of a religious character among private persons the mischiefs of superstition, and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.
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He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.
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By the word simplicity, is not always meant folly or ignorance but often, pure and upright Nature, free from artifice, craft or deceitful ornament.
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It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
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He that speaks ill of the mare will buy her.
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There will be plenty of time to sleep once you are dead
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If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the sake of accumulating wealth. Poor man, said I, you pay too much for your whistle.
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