Tart Words make no Friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than Gallon of Vinegar.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1744 ed.)
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Not original with Franklin. See Giovanni Torriano, A Common Place of Italian Proverbs [Piazza universale di proverbi Italiani] (1666):Il mele catta più mosche, che non fà l'aceto.
Honey gets more flyes to it, than doth viniger.
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I have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost forgot the Idea of Hell, and am afraid rather to lose the joyes of the one than endure the misery of the other; to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, & needs me thinkes no addition to compleate our afflictions; that terrible terme hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof: I feare God, yet am not afraid of him, his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgements afraid thereof: these are the forced and secondary method of his wisedome, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation, a course rather to deterre the wicked, than incite the vertuous to his worship. I can hardly thinke there was ever any scared into Heaven, they goe the fairest way to Heaven, that would serve God without a Hell, other Mercenaries that crouch unto him in feare of Hell, though they terme themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty.
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English physician and author
Religio Medici, Part 1, sec. 52 (1643)
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