Key takeaways
- Most genuine Benjamin Franklin quotes come from Poor Richard's Almanack, which he published under the pen name Richard Saunders, and from The Way to Wealth of 1758.
- Franklin never wrote "a penny saved is a penny earned." His 1737 almanac says "A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear."
- "Time is money" is genuinely his: it opens Advice to a Young Tradesman, dated July 21, 1748.
- Several of the most shared lines, including "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember," have no evidence tying them to Franklin.
- Every genuine quote below carries the year and the document it comes from, checked against the Yale edition of his papers.
Benjamin Franklin is one of the most quoted Americans who ever lived, and one of the most misquoted. Part of the reason is that he wrote in proverbs, and proverbs travel. A line that started in a Philadelphia almanac in the 1730s gets smoothed, modernized and handed back to him two centuries later in words he never used.
This list does the opposite. Each quote is given in Franklin's own spelling, with the year and the document, checked against the Yale edition of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Where a famous line turns out not to be his, it says so, and says what he actually wrote instead. The Franklin Institute keeps its own short list of things Benjamin Franklin never said.
Where do most Benjamin Franklin quotes come from?
Most of them come from Poor Richard's Almanack, the yearly almanac Franklin wrote and printed in Philadelphia. The Library of Congress notes that he published it under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, began in 1732 and kept it going for twenty-five years, selling nearly ten thousand copies a year.
An almanac was a working tool: tide tables, moon phases, weather guesses. Franklin filled the empty spaces between those tables with short sayings, and that is where the famous lines sit. Many were not his inventions, and he said so. At the end of The Way to Wealth, Richard Saunders admits that "not a tenth Part of the Wisdom was my own," but rather "the Gleanings I had made of the Sense of all Ages and Nations."
The second big source is The Way to Wealth, and the third is his letters and public papers. Those give us the political lines, like the one about liberty and safety, which have nothing to do with the almanac at all.
Which Benjamin Franklin quotes are genuine?
These are verified against the Yale edition, in Franklin's spelling, with the almanac year or document.
"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise." (Poor Richard, 1735)
"Fish and Visitors stink in 3 days." (Poor Richard, 1736)
"God helps them that help themselves." (Poor Richard, 1736)
"Diligence is the Mother of Good-Luck." (Poor Richard, 1736)
"A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear." (Poor Richard, 1737)
"Well done is better than well said." (Poor Richard, 1737)
"Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other." (Poor Richard, 1743)
"Beware of little Expences, a small Leak will sink a great Ship." (Poor Richard, 1745)
"No gains without pains." (Poor Richard, 1745)
"Remember that Time is Money." (Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748)
"Lost Time is never found again." (Poor Richard Improved, 1748)
"Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack'd, and never well mended." (Poor Richard Improved, 1750)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Pennsylvania Assembly, Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755)
"Dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the Stuff Life is made of." (The Way to Wealth, 1758)
Almost none are about getting rich quickly. They are about small, repeated habits: time, attention, little expenses.
Did Benjamin Franklin say "a penny saved is a penny earned"?
No, not in those words. The line he printed in Poor Richard for 1737 is "A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear," followed in the same entry by "A Pin a day is a Groat a Year. Save and have. Every little makes a mickle." The Franklin Institute names "a penny saved is a penny earned" as the saying most often wrongly credited to him.
There is a second, closer version. In 1732 Franklin published a letter in the Pennsylvania Gazette under the name Celia Single, in which a husband tells his wife "you know a penny sav'd is a penny got." The "you know" matters: the character treats it as a saying everyone already knows. So Franklin used the proverb, but he did not coin it, and the modern word "earned" is not his.
His own version is actually the bolder one. Twopence clear claims a saved penny is worth double, which is a stronger promise than the modern saying makes.
Where does "time is money" come from?
It comes from Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One, which the Yale edition dates July 21, 1748. The first piece of advice reads, in full, "Remember that Time is Money." Franklin then does the arithmetic: a man who can earn ten shillings a day and spends half the day idle has not only spent the sixpence on his amusement, he has thrown away the five shillings he could have earned.
Franklin is describing what an economist would now call opportunity cost, the value of the thing you did not do. The same short essay goes on to "Remember that Credit is Money," which is the half nobody quotes. To see the line beside Seneca, Shakespeare and Chaucer, read time quotes traced to their sources.
What is The Way to Wealth?
The Way to Wealth is the preface Franklin wrote for his twenty-fifth almanac, for the year 1758. The Library of Congress describes it as a speech by an old man called Father Abraham to a crowd waiting at an auction, stitched together almost entirely from Poor Richard's earlier proverbs, and calls it the most extensively reprinted of all Franklin's writings.
That framing explains a lot of confusion. Lines that first appeared in the 1730s and 1740s turn up again in 1758, so the same quote is often dated two different ways. The text is free to read through Project Gutenberg, and it is short enough to read in one sitting. Father Abraham closes with the line that sums up the whole almanac: "Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that."
How do the famous versions compare with what Franklin wrote?
The popular wording and the printed wording are often close, and sometimes nothing alike.
| Quote as shared | Source | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| "A penny saved is a penny earned" | Not Franklin's wording | His 1737 almanac: "A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear" |
| "Time is money" | Franklin, 1748 | Advice to a Young Tradesman: "Remember that Time is Money" |
| "Early to bed, early to rise..." | Franklin, 1735 | Poor Richard, repeated in The Way to Wealth |
| "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn" | No evidence it is Franklin's | The Franklin Institute links it to the Confucian thinker Xun Kuang |
| "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest" | Untraced | No match in a search of the Yale edition of his papers |
| "Lighthouses are more useful than churches" | Not his words | Likely drawn from a July 1757 letter to his wife after a near shipwreck |
Which famous quotes did Franklin never say?
The most shared one is probably the line about learning. "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn" appears under Franklin's portrait on classroom walls everywhere, yet the Franklin Institute says there is no evidence he ever said it and points to the Confucian philosopher Xun Kuang instead.
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest" is the other big one. It sounds exactly like him, which is the problem. A search of the Yale edition of his papers for "investment in knowledge" returns no match. That does not prove he never said it, but no document of his carries it.
The pattern is worth remembering. Franklin's real sayings are short and concrete: pennies, pins, leaks, rust, fish. If a line attributed to him is abstract and polished, check it.
How do you check a Franklin quote before printing it?
- Look for a year. Genuine almanac lines can be dated to a specific Poor Richard, and genuine letters have a date and a recipient.
- Search the old spelling, not the modern one. "Sav'd," "Expences" and "crack'd" are what the documents actually say.
- Check whether it is a proverb he borrowed. By his own account, most of his almanac wisdom was gleaned from others.
- Prefer the version from the earliest almanac over a later reprint, since The Way to Wealth reworded some lines.
- If a line is abstract and modern in tone, treat it as unverified until a document turns up.
Which Franklin quotes work on a wall?
The short, practical ones, and so does his face. "Remember that Time is Money" works above a desk because it is an instruction, not a mood. "Well done is better than well said" works in any room where meetings happen. The longer liberty quote needs a wide format and a clean typeface to stay readable.
Franklin also works without words. His portrait on the hundred dollar bill is the most recognized image of him in the world, which is why it anchors so much money art: torn open, recolored, collaged, or laid under a pen. The range sits in the money wall art collection. For the neighboring idea about time, see Seneca's quotes on time, checked against the translation, and for the room around it, wall art for an entrepreneur's office.
Featured Franklin pieces
Frequently asked questions
What is Benjamin Franklin's most famous quote?
"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise" is a strong candidate, along with "time is money." Both are genuinely his: the first appears in Poor Richard for 1735, and the second opens Advice to a Young Tradesman, dated July 21, 1748.
Who really said "a penny saved is a penny earned"?
No single author is known. Franklin printed "A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear" in 1737, and in 1732 one of his pen-name letters used "a penny sav'd is a penny got" as a familiar saying. The modern "earned" wording is not his.
Did Franklin write "time is money"?
Yes. "Remember that Time is Money" is the first line of advice in Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One, from 1748. He follows it with a worked example about a man who idles away half a day's wages.
What is Poor Richard's Almanack?
It was the yearly almanac Franklin wrote and printed in Philadelphia under the name Richard Saunders, starting in 1732 and running for twenty-five years. Between the weather and tide tables he printed short proverbs, which are the source of most quotes credited to him.
Is "an investment in knowledge pays the best interest" a real Franklin quote?
It cannot be traced to him. A search of the Yale edition of his papers for the phrase returns no match. It may be a later summary of his views on education, but no Franklin document carries those words.
