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He was, during his eighty-four-year-long life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist,
Franklin’s most important vision: an American national identity based on the virtues and values of its middle class.
Benjamin Franklin was the youngest son of the youngest sons for five generations. Being the last of the litter often meant having to strike out on your own.
the Puritan migration established the foundation for some characteristics of Benjamin Franklin, and of America itself: a belief that spiritual salvation and secular success need not be at odds, that industriousness is next to godliness, and that free thought and free enterprise are integrally related.
(Proverbs 22:29),
“Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings.”
doubling every twenty years.
To prepare him for Harvard, Josiah sent his son, at age 8, to Boston Latin School,
Anecdotes about his youthful intellect and impish nature abound, but there are none that show him as pious or faithful. Just the opposite.
Fortunately, Franklin acquired something that was perhaps just as enlightening as a Harvard education: the training and experiences of a publisher, printer, and newspaperman.
young Benjamin ended up apprenticed in 1718, at age 12, to his brother James,
his brother demanded a nine-year term instead of the typical seven years.
Then, as today, there was an advantage in the media business to controlling both content and distribution.
the Courant ought to be remembered on its own as America’s first fiercely independent newspaper, a bold, antiestablishment journal that helped to create the nation’s tradition of an irreverent press.
inoculation was a standard practice in parts of Africa.
books were the most important formative influence in his life,
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress,
Plutarch’s Lives,
deism that became the creed of choice during the Enlightenment.
Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good,
Daniel Defoe’s An Essay upon Projects,
James, already jealous of his upstart young brother, was unlikely to encourage him.
One reason the Silence Dogood essays are so historically notable is that they were among the first examples of what would become a quintessential American genre of humor: the wry, homespun mix of folksy tales and pointed observations that was perfected by such Franklin descendants as Mark Twain and Will Rogers.
the 17-year-old Franklin set sail in a fair wind on the evening of Wednesday, September 25, 1723.
“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
A recurring theme in his autobiography, as well as in his tales and almanacs, was his amusement at man’s ability to rationalize what was convenient.
“A man [is] sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty,” he later wrote, “perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.”
Franklin, more typically, nurtured his reputation, as a matter of both pride and utility, and he became the country’s first unabashed public relations expert.
people are more likely to admire your work if you’re able to keep them from feeling jealous of you.
A secret to being more revered than resented, he learned, was to display (at least when he could muster the discipline) a self-deprecating humor, unpretentious demeanor, and unaggressive style in conversation.
Despite his sexual appetites, he was practical about what he wanted in a wife. Deborah was rather plain, but she offered the prospect of comfort and domesticity.
“He wished to please everybody,” Franklin later said of Keith, “and having little to give, he gave expectations.”
he was less good at nurturing lasting bonds that involved deep personal commitments or emotional relationships, even within his own family.
he soon came to the conclusion that a simple and complacent deism had its own set of drawbacks.
Franklin declared of deism, “I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful.”
religious practices were beneficial because they encouraged good behavior and a moral society.
With his penchant for temperance and frugality,
Henceforth, Franklin would find himself more attracted to people who were practical and reliable rather than dreamy and romantic.
talent for observing human nature.
it was impossible for a dishonest person, no matter how cunning, to completely conceal his character.
a person who is too fearful will end up performing defensively and thus fail to seize offensive advantages.
the first person in America to manufacture type.
Knowledge, he realized, “was obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue.” So in the Junto, he began to work on his use of silence and gentle dialogue.
“Would you win the hearts of others, you must not seem to vie with them, but to admire them. Give them every opportunity of displaying their own qualifications, and when you have indulged their vanity, they will praise you in turn and prefer you above others . . . Such is the vanity of mankind that minding what others say is a much surer way of pleasing them than talking well ourselves.”6
Franklin went on to catalog the most common conversational sins “which cause dislike,” the greatest being “talking overmuch . . .
“For these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me,”
Franklin’s favorite theme: slow and steady diligence is the true way to wealth.
In the spirit of what Poor Richard would call “doing well by doing good,” Franklin was not averse to mingling his private interests with his public ones.
“Printers are educated in the belief that when men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; and that when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.”
The rights of printers, he realized, were balanced by their duty to be responsible. Thus, even though printers should be free to publish offensive opinions, they should generally exercise discretion.
