Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
Tag: Benjamin Franklin
(1706–1790) One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.
Danger: Government at work
No man’s life, liberty, or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.
Get informed
A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.
A life worth living
If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.
Debt ends liberty
When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty.
Descent into monarchy
There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever. … There is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government. … I am apprehensive … that the government of the states may, in future times, end in a monarchy.
Virtue and freedom
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
Declaration of independence
Philadelphia, July 3 [1776]: Yesterday the Continental Congress declared the United Colonies free and independent states.
The corrosive effect of welfare
In my youth I travelled 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. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? — On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.
Socialism will end our Republic
When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.