Today we are continuing to celebrate ‘Read an Almanac’ month! One of the most popular almanacs, Poor Richard’s Almanac, was created by Benjamin Franklin who was known for his wise proverbs which taught people about true wealth and how to live a frugal lifestyle. Throughout the life of Poor Richard’s Almanac, over 150 of these profound and clever statements were published. Here’s a roundup of our favorites:

  1. Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. Leisure is time for doing something useful, and this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never, for a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things.
  2. Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.
  3. Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy.—He that rises late must trot all day, and hall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.
  4. Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack’d, and never well mended.
  5. God helps them that help themselves.
  6. Wish not so much to live long as to live well.
  7. An empty bag will not stand upright.
  8. Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
  9. How many observe Christ’s Birth-day! How few, his Precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.
  10. Think of three Things, whence you came, where you are going, and to whom you must account.
  11. The things which hurt, instruct.
  12. He that’s content, hath enough; He that complains, has too much.
  13. Necessity never made a good bargain.
  14. Tell a miser he’s rich, and a woman she’s old, you’ll get no money of one, nor kindness of t’other.
  15. Temper to bear much, will have much to bear.
  16. To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish.
  17. Be neither silly, nor cunning, but wise.