Skip to content

The good particular men may do separately, in relieving the sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively.

— Benjamin Franklin

Another quote →

Topics

Good and Evil

More quotes by Benjamin Franklin

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.

Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely ford that see the shallows.

Poor Richard's Almanack (1733)

Creditors have better memories than debtors; and creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.

Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)

All Benjamin Franklin quotes →

You may also like

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Socrates

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.

Edward Teller

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

Henry David Thoreau Walden (1854)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Benjamin Franklin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.