“Like childbirth, the birth of America was messy, bloody, painful, and sometimes tragic. Yet it remains miraculous – America’s Hidden History by Kenneth Davis

Either this country was born by the blessing and design of a benevolent supreme being or because of an unimaginable coalescing in a single moment and place in time the vision of brilliant people yearning to be free.

No matter how or why it happened, I live in awe of those original Americans.

One of my favorites is Benjamin Franklin. What an experience it would be if I could go back in time and spend just one day with him.

A few of his quotes and thoughts. Enjoy

“Who is wise? He that learns front everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.”

“Common sense aided by present danger, will sometimes be too strong for whimsical opinions.”

“Nothing dries sooner than a tear.”

“He who has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged”

“The individual, who surrendered himself or herself to any extreme, whether it was political passion or physical vice, was, in Franklin’s view, sinning against this greatest of all human values, freedom” 

“In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith but by the want of it”

“He’s a fool that makes his Doctor his heir”

“In short, I conceived that the great part of the miseries of mankind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had made of the value of things……” 

“After a youthful flirtation with atheism, he had become convinced of the existence of a God whom all nature cries aloud through all her works”

“Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country of which it would be proper to move the Legislature for an amendment? Have you observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?”

 “A benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance”

 “The individual, who surrendered himself or herself to any extreme, whether it was political passion or physical vice, was, in Franklin’s view, sinning against this greatest of all human values, freedom”

 And from a different source:

 “Before the American Revolution, no people had ever explicitly voted on their own written Constitution.” – America’s Hidden History by Kenneth Davis