7 Wise Sayings from Benjamin Franklin

I've posted some quotes from Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac before, but one post cannot contain his wealth of advice. ;-) So I thought today, on this chilly January morn when my thermometer has dipped into the negatives, I'd warm everyone up with some of Ben's wisdom.

Buy what thou hast no need of; and e’er long thou shalt sell thy necessities.

I don't know about you, but my brain is often wired to this life of excess we tend to live today. When I see someone choosing to live simply, it always gives me a check. This year, I'm making an attempt to cut back and focus on the important things, not the many things. And though Franklin was by all accounts wealthy and lacking for nothing, I greatly appreciate that his inventions were meant to make life easier for the common man.

Don’t value a man for the quality he is of, but for the qualities he possesses.

Yes, we all judge books by their covers. But when it comes to people, we definitely need to remember that the exterior, be it circumstances or looks, is not what matters.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.

Oh so often I complain of having no time to do what I need to do...but how often is that because I fail to prioritize my time wisely?

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

I think we often fall into the trap of thinking we have a right to be angry. But do we? Or do we merely have an excuse to be?

An old young man will be a young old man.

I love this one. =) My father-in-law said back when I was a teenager just dating my now-hubby that I was the oldest young person he ever met. I took it as a compliment. And I hope that the same something that made me weigh things carefully as a young person will make me appreciate and enjoy life all the more as I age. 

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

This is one I try to tell myself often. I'm an eternal optimist, but I have to be careful not to hope in what is not in the Lord's plan for me. The trick, of course, is determining what that is.

By diligence and patience, the mouse bit in two the cable.

Sometimes the tasks put before seem so very daunting--but with faith, nothing is beyond us that we are called to do.

~*~
Roseanna M. White pens her novels under the Betsy Ross flag hanging above her desk, with her Jane Austen action figure watching over her. When she isn’t writing fiction, she’s editing it for WhiteFire Publishing or reviewing it for the Christian Review of Books, both of which she co-founded with her husband. www.roseannawhite.com