“The Way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.”

— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)

About Benjamin Franklin

1706 – 1790

American statesman, scientist, printer and writer, who published 'Poor Richard's Almanack' for many years.

“Well done is better than well said.”

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

“Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

“There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.”