The First American Quotes

“Ben Franklin advises his grandson not to let even the American Revolution interrupt his studies, urging of young adulthood, "This is the time of life in which you are to lay the foundations of your future improvement and of your importance among men. If this season is neglected, it will be like cutting off the spring from the year.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“The males (of the Hutchinson family that included both religious dissenter Anne and immensely wealthy and politically connected Thomas) were merchants who sought salvation through commerce.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“The Body of
B. Franklin,
Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms,
But the Work shall not be wholly lost,
For it will, as he believed, appear once more,
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and amended
By the Author.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“As long as riches attached to office, Britain would suffer. “Your Parliament will be a stormy sea, and your public councils confounded by private interests.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“After much occasion to consider the folly and mischiefs of a state of warfare,” Franklin wrote, “and the little or no advantage obtained even by those nations who have conducted it with the most success, I have been apt to think that there has never been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Farther, if my countrymen should ever wish for the honour of having among them a gentry enormously wealthy, let them sell their farms and pay racked rents; the scale of the landlords will rise as that of the tenants is depressed, who will soon become poor, tattered, dirty, and abject in spirit.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“was the question of the hour; generalized, it was the question on which hung the fate of the British empire. Who were these Americans? To the British they were Britons, albeit of a turbulent sort. The Americans might live across the ocean, but the colonies they inhabited had been planted by Britain and were defended by Britain; therefore to the government of Britain—preeminently, to the British Parliament—the Americans must submit, like any other Britons. To the Americans, the question was more complicated. Nearly all Americans considered themselves Britons, but Britons of a different kind than lived in London or the Midlands or Scotland. Possessing their own assemblies—their own parliaments—the Americans believed they answered to the British Crown but not to the British Parliament. At its core the struggle between the American colonies and the British government was a contest between these competing definitions of American identity. Put simply, were the Americans truly Britons, or were they something else?”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Conditions among the common people of Scotland were hardly better. Franklin and Jackson crossed over from Ireland during a lull between two hurricanes; the human devastation they saw in Scotland made hurricanes appear almost benign by contrast. And together with what Franklin had lately observed of the manufacturing regions of England, it confirmed his conviction of the superiority of the American mode of social organization. I thought often of the happiness of New England, where every man is a freeholder, has a vote in public affairs, lives in a tidy warm house, has plenty of good food and fuel, with whole clothes from head to foot, the manufactory perhaps of his own family. Long may they continue in this situation! But if they should ever envy the trade of these countries, I can put them in a way to obtain a share of it. Let them with three-fourths of the people of Ireland live the year round on potatoes and butter milk, without shirts, then may their merchants export beef, butter and linen. Let them with the generality of the common people of Scotland go barefoot, then may they make large exports in shoes and stockings. And if they will”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“It was hardly Franklin’s finest hour, and he knew it. Of course he had no direct responsibility for the death of young Rees; he was righteously, and rightly, indignant at any intimation that he had. But he certainly might have done more to discourage those who were making inexcusable sport of the boy. His contention that he meant to warn him, but that he slipped away, was lame, as was his assertion—contradicted by his own words—that he had taken a serious view of the satanic oath. For years Franklin had been cultivating a pleasing personal style, one that accommodated others rather than confronting them. This style generally served him well, allowing his business to flourish and his reputation to grow. Some occasions, however, call for confrontation, as when a wrong demands to be righted, or at least addressed. This was one of those occasions, and here Franklin’s style failed.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Franklin took as much pride in encouraging the creation of the Philadelphia fire companies as in nearly anything else he did. Writing late in life, after he had visited every city in America and many of those in Europe, he said, “I question whether there is a city in the world better provided with the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations; and in fact since those institutions, the city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time.” By then Franklin was a world-renowned scientific and political figure, feted for taming lightning and tyrants; that such a mundane improvement as fire prevention gave him such pleasure reflected his solid grounding in the affairs of ordinary life.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“As with his earlier essay on metaphysics, his argument for a paper currency was less noteworthy for what it said about its subject than for what it said about its author. Franklin was not an original economist and would never become one, although his observations in other areas—population growth, for instance—would greatly influence the work of economists. Yet at twenty-three he did not hesitate to engage the theorists on their own ground, and if his insights gave little instruction to the experts, they conveyed the subject to the amateurs who formed his true—and growing—audience. The gist of his argument was that a scarcity of circulating money elevated interest rates and thereby retarded trade. Merchants had to borrow to finance inventories; the greater the cost of the borrowing, the smaller the inventories financed. High interest rates also discouraged land sales by pricing potential buyers out of the market. The general phenomenon was at once an obvious application of the law of supply and demand and an observed inference from the behavior of the Pennsylvania economy. The opposite was equally obvious and observable. “We have already experienced how much the increase of our currency by what paper money has been made, has encouraged our trade.” The single example of shipbuilding illustrated the point: It may not be amiss to observe under this head what a great advantage it must be to us as a trading country that has workmen and all the materials proper for that business within itself, to have ship-building as much as possible advanced: For every ship that is built here for the English merchants gains the province her clear value in gold and silver, which must otherwise have been sent home for returns in her stead; and likewise every ship built in and belonging to the province not only saves the province her first cost but all the freight, wages and provisions she ever makes or requires as long as she lasts, provided care is taken to make this her pay port, and that she always takes provisions with her for the whole voyage, which may easily be done.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Franklin conceded error in printing the line. He knew what “black gowns” referred to, although he said he had never encountered “sea hens” before. Could he do the thing over, he would refuse to print the notice. “However, ’tis done and cannot be revoked.” In his defense he adduced some mitigating factors: that he harbored no ill will toward those allegedly slandered, and in fact claimed customers and friends among the Anglican clergy; that he had printed more than a thousand advertisements since opening shop, and this was the first that had given such offense; that if he had intended injury against the clergy, this was an exceedingly foolish way to accomplish it, as the backlash demonstrated; and—not incidentally—“that I got five shillings by it” and “that none who are angry with me would have given me so much to let it alone.” He recited a fable illustrating his predicament: A certain well-meaning man and his son were travelling towards a market town, with an ass which they had to sell. The road was bad, and the old man therefore rid [rode], but the son went afoot. The first passenger they met asked the father if he was not ashamed to ride by himself and suffer the poor lad to wade along through the mire; this induced him to take up his son behind him. He had not travelled far when he met others, who said they were two unmerciful lubbers to get both on the back of that poor ass, in such a deep road. Upon this the old man gets off and let his son ride alone. The next they met called the lad a graceless, rascally young jackanapes to ride in that manner through the dirt while his aged father trudged along on foot; and they said the old man was a fool for suffering it. He then bid his son come down and walk with him, and they travelled on leading the ass by the halter; till they met another company, who called them a couple of senseless blockheads for going both on foot in such a dirty way when they had an empty ass with them, which they might ride upon. The old man could bear no longer. My son, he said, it grieves me much that we cannot please all these people. Let us throw the ass over the next bridge, and be no farther troubled with him. Franklin noted that should the old man have been seen acting on this resolution, he would have been judged even more the fool for trying to please everyone. “Therefore, though I have a temper almost as complying as his, I intend not to imitate him in this last particular. I consider the variety of humours among men, and despair of pleasing everybody; yet I shall not therefore leave off printing. I shall continue my business. I shall not burn my press and melt my letters.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Not content simply to accept his speckles, Franklin explained they were better than a polished moral finish. “Something that pretended to be reason was every now and then suggesting to me that such extreme nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which if it were known would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.” Yet even as he embraced imperfection—he abandoned his project before the end of the first thirteen-week course—he judged that the mere attempt made him a better and happier man than he would have been otherwise—“as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavour.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“For a time his inability to maintain order vexed him greatly. But soon he began to rationalize his deficiency. He afterward told a story on himself, of a man who wanted to buy an ax from a smith. The man agreed to pay the advertised price only on the condition that the smith grind the ax until the entire surface of the head shone as brightly as the cutting edge. The smith accepted, on a condition of his own: that the purchaser power the grinding wheel. The man consented and the work began. After a time the man inquired how the polishing was progressing. Steadily, said the smith. The man turned the wheel some more and inquired again. Steadily, said the smith. Again more turning, again the inquiry. Again: Steadily. Finally, exhausted from his labors, the man said he would take the ax as it was. No, no, said the smith; keep turning and we shall have the whole head like a mirror by and by. So we might, said the man, but I think I like a speckled ax best.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Borrowing from Cato, he declared, “I hold: If there is a Power above us (and that there is all nature cries aloud, through all her works), He must delight in virtue, and that which He delights in must be happy.” As the deists did, Franklin measured the immensity of the universe against the minusculity of the earth and the inhabitants thereof, and concluded from this that it was “great vanity in me to suppose that the Supremely Perfect does in the least regard such an inconsiderable nothing as man.” Moreover, this Supremely Perfect had absolutely no need to be worshipped by humans; He was infinitely above such sentiments or actions. Yet if worship filled no divine purpose, it did serve a human need. “I think it seems required of me, and my duty as a man, to pay divine regards to something.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Franklin remained too much the skeptic to return to revelation as understood by the Cotton Mathers of the world, but now he conceded that if what passed for revelation revealed little about God, it might reveal much about man. “I entertained an opinion, that though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably those actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Another delay allowed a tour of the Isle of Wight; here Franklin heard the tale of a local governor who had been esteemed a saint in most of his lifetime by nearly all men, but who turned out to have been a great villain. What struck Franklin was that the man’s true character had been discerned by a “silly old fellow” Franklin met, who currently kept the castle and otherwise had little sense about life. The moral? No man, though he possessed the cunning of a devil, could live and die a rogue yet maintain the reputation of an honest man; some slip, some accident, would give him away. “Truth and sincerity have a certain distinguishing native lustre about them which cannot be perfectly counterfeited; they are like fire and flame that cannot be painted.” While on the subject of reputation, Franklin noted a statue of Sir Robert Holmes, formerly governor of Wight, who built a monument to himself, with an autobiographical, and highly flattering, inscription. Franklin observed wryly, “One would think either that he had no defect at all, or had a very ill opinion of the world, seeing he was so careful to make sure of a monument to record his good actions and transmit them to posterity.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“To the obvious objection that the most cursory glance at human society showed some people to be happy while others were unhappy, Franklin rejoined that appearances deceived. “When we see riches, grandeur and a cheerful countenance, we easily imagine happiness accompanies them, when oftentimes ’tis quite otherwise; nor is a constantly sorrowful look, attended with continual complaints, an infallible indication of unhappiness.” Having disposed of happiness and unhappiness, Franklin attacked the notion of the immortality of the soul. He identified the soul with consciousness and the ability to treat ideas absorbed by the senses (“The soul is a mere power or faculty of contemplating on and comparing those ideas”), and then argued that when consciousness ended, the soul ceased to exist. Perhaps the soul in some way attached itself to a new body and new ideas. “But that will in no way concern us who are now living, for the identity will be lost; it is no longer that same self but a new being.” If temporal happiness was an illusion, and eternal happiness an impossibility, why should anyone strive for anything? Merely to avoid pain. The soul of an infant did not achieve consciousness (“it is as if it were not”) until it felt pain. Thus is the machine set on work; this is life. We are first moved by pain, and the whole succeeding course of our lives is but one continued series of action with a view to be freed from it. As fast as we have excluded one uneasiness another appears; otherwise the motion would cease. If a continual weight is not applied, the clock will stop. And as soon as the avenues of uneasiness to the soul are choked up or cut off, we are dead, we think and act no more. Like most such attempts to prove the unprovable, Franklin’s effort revealed more about the author than about the subject. Indeed, it revealed more about the author than he cared to have revealed. Although his employer, Palmer, was impressed by the ingenuity of Franklin’s argumentation, he decried Franklin’s conclusions as abominable. This reaction prompted Franklin to reconsider. In his autobiography he characterized various mistakes of his life as “errata”; regarding this episode he asserted, “My printing this pamphlet was another erratum.” Long before then he had burned all but the few copies already delivered to friends.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Franklin approached his subject syllogistically, after the fashion of philosophers since Aristotle. God was reckoned to be “all wise, all good, all powerful.” “If He is all powerful, there can be nothing either existing or acting in the universe against or without his consent; and what He consents to must be good, because He is good; therefore evil doth not exist.” Franklin did not deny the existence of pain and suffering in the world, but rather than interpreting these as evil, he deemed them essentially figments of the human imagination. In a passage that reflected both his reading and his experience, Franklin dismissed the notion of happiness detached from unhappiness: It is owing to their ignorance of the nature of pleasure and pain that the ancient heathens believed the idle fable of their Elysium, that state of uninterrupted ease and happiness. The thing is entirely impossible in nature! Are not the pleasures of the spring made such by the disagreeableness of the winter? Is not the pleasure of fair weather owing to the unpleasantness of foul? Certainly. Were it then always spring, were the fields always green and flourishing, and the weather constantly serene and fair, the pleasure would pall and die upon our hands; it would cease to be pleasure to us, when it is not ushered in by uneasiness.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Yet Ralph was not without collateral of sorts. His absence in Berkshire left his paramour, the madam milliner, in distress both emotional and financial. Her relationship with Ralph had cost her friends and a job. She knew Franklin as an easy mark for a hard tale; with tears, sighs, and doubtless the well-timed coquettish glance, she took up where Ralph had left off fishing in Franklin’s purse. Yet Franklin was not a complete naïf, at least not on this point. He favored her requests for money, then made a request of his own. As he phrased it later: “Presuming on my importance to her, I attempted familiarities.” The vigor of his attempt exceeded its welcome. The initiative was “repulsed with a proper resentment,” forcing Franklin to withdraw. The miscue cost him more than embarrassment. The woman informed Ralph of the real Mr. Franklin’s improper advance, prompting Ralph to declare his friendship with Franklin ended and his financial obligations canceled. Franklin felt himself in no position to make an issue of his loss. As he was learning to do, he philosophized that this was all for the best. He never would have seen the money anyway; nothing had been sacrificed save his good reputation in the eyes of a woman whose own reputation was hardly the finest, and of a friend who was no true friend. “In the loss of his friendship,” Franklin concluded of Ralph, “I found myself relieved from a burden.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“He also received a parting gift from Cotton Mather. To Franklin’s surprise the minister evinced a desire to see the young man. Franklin visited his library, where Mather indicated that all was forgiven. But not quite forgotten: on showing Franklin out via a side passage, he suddenly said, “Stoop, stoop!” Franklin did not understand him and ran into a low beam. Never one to let a sermonizing moment pass, Mather explained, “You are young and have the world before you. Stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“He also received a parting gift from Cotton Mather. To Franklin’s surprise the minister evinced a desire to see the young man. Franklin visited his library, where Mather indicated that all was forgiven. But not quite forgotten: on showing Franklin out via a side passage, he suddenly said, “Stoop, stoop!” Franklin did not understand him and ran into a low beam. Never one to let a sermonizing moment pass, Mather explained, “You are young and have the world before”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Where James swung his pen like a broadsword, Ben wielded a rapier. His satire was always light, never ponderous; it usually brought smiles to objective lips and must occasionally have turned up the corners of even Cotton Mather’s mouth. With his own name now on the masthead, Ben refrained from labeling the colony’s notables hypocrites; instead he spoofed their obsession with titles. “Adam was never called Master Adam; we never read of Noah Esquire, Lot Knight and Baronet, nor the Right Honourable Abraham, Viscount Mesopotamia, Baron of Carran. … We never read of the Reverend Moses, nor the Right Reverend Father in God, Aaron, by Divine Providence, Lord Arch-Bishop of Israel.” He got his point across, less dramatically but more effectively than James had.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Yet he reconsidered his repentance about the same time he recovered his health, and by the beginning of 1723 the Courant, again under his direction, was taxing the council in language like that which Ben had placed in the mouth of Mrs. Dogood. “Whenever I find a man full of religious cant and pellaver,” the January 14 issue opined, “I presently suspect him of being a knave. Religion is indeed the principal thing, but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains, but of all knaves, the religious knave is the worst; and villainies acted under the cloak of religion are the most execrable.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech, a thing terrible to public traitors.” This talk of traitors was strong stuff, but Silence had not finished. “It has been for some time a question with me, whether a commonwealth suffers more by hypocritical pretenders to religion or by the openly profane? … Some late thoughts of this nature have inclined me to think that the hypocrite is the most dangerous person of the two, especially if he sustains a post in the government.” The openly profane person deceived no one and thereby limited the damage he could cause; but the godly hypocrite enlisted the unwitting many into his malign service. “They take him for a saint and pass him for one, without considering that they are (as it were) the instruments of public mischief out of conscience, and ruin their country for God’s sake.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Having experienced multiple deaths in her family, she offered a formula for eulogizing departed loved ones, pointing out that tears were the easier to elicit the more unexpected and violent the demise. “It will be best if he went away suddenly, being killed, drowned, or froze to death.” The address in such a case ought to include a litany of melancholy expressions such as “dreadful, deadly, cruel cold death, unhappy fate, weeping eyes.” An experienced speaker would wring the maximal lachrymation from an audience, but in a pinch anyone could deliver the doleful sentiments. “Put them into the empty skull of some young Harvard (but in case you have ne’er a one at hand, you may use your own).” Rhymes were nice: “power, flower; quiver, shiver; grieve us, leave us.” A concluding flourish was the mark of a really distinguished graveside encomium. “If you can procure a scrap of Latin to put at the end, it will garnish it mightily.” Had they come from the pen of a mature writer, the Dogood letters would deserve to be considered a delightful example of social satire. Coming as they did from the pen of a mere youth, they reveal emerging genius. Some of what Franklin wrote he might have experienced indirectly; some he extrapolated from his reading; much he must simply have imagined. But the tone is uniformly confident and true to the character he created. Silence is irreverent and full of herself, yet she brings most readers—the proud and powerful excepted—into the realm of her sympathy. They laugh when she laughs, and laugh at whom she laughs at. She is one of the more memorable minor characters of American literature, and all the more memorable for being the creation of a sixteen-year-old boy.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“As one of the youngest, Ben necessarily learned to get along with others; outnumbered and outweighed by his elder siblings, he relied on wits where force failed. Often insight came after the fact. “When I was a child of seven years old,” he recounted several decades later, “my friends on a holiday filled my little pocket with half-pence. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way, in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for it. When I came home, whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family, my brothers, sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth, put me in mind of what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money, and laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure.” With the wisdom of age, Franklin added, “As I came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met many who gave too much for the whistle.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“At the precocious age of twenty-two Franklin wrote what became one of the most famous epitaphs in that lapidary genre: The Body of
B. Franklin,
Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms,
But the Work shall not be wholly lost,
For it will, as he believed, appear once more,
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and amended
By the Author. When the time came, however, he preferred something simpler. In his will he directed that only “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin 1790” adorn the headstone he shared with his dear country Joan. A life as full as Franklin’s could not be captured in a phrase—or a volume. Yet if a few words had to suffice, a few words that summarized his legacy to the America he played such a central role in creating—and that, not incidentally, illustrated his wry, aphoristic style—they were those he uttered upon leaving the final session of the Constitutional Convention. A matron of Philadelphia demanded to know, after four months’ secrecy, what he and the other delegates had produced. “A republic,” he answered, “if you can keep it.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“That many were interested in his life story was evident from the queries he received. Ezra Stiles of Connecticut was one of the more forward. “As much as I know of Dr. Franklin, I have not an idea of his religious sentiments,” Stiles wrote Franklin. Would he be so kind as to enlighten an old friend? “It is the first time I have been questioned upon it,” Franklin replied. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do [Stiles shared Franklin’s tolerance] in whatever sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure. I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“His resolutions were straightforward and eminently practical. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance; to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action—the most amiable excellence in a rational being. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of every body. Franklin was proud of this plan, and prouder still, with the passing years, of making it the basis for his life’s conduct. Writing almost half a century later, he said, “It is the more remarkable, as being formed when I was so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite through to old age.” Having formulated his four commandments on the high seas, Franklin proceeded after landing to identify thirteen cardinal virtues. In typical orderly fashion (number three on the list), he enumerated them, with a thumbnail description of each: Temperance Eat not to dullness. Drink not to elevation. Silence Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation. Order Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time. Resolution Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., Waste nothing. Industry Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions. Sincerity Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation Avoid extremes. Forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Cleanliness Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation. Tranquillity Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; never to dullness, weakness or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation. Franklin’s list originally stopped at a dozen. But a Quaker friend gently pointed out that certain of Franklin’s neighbors thought him proud. Franklin expressed surprise, thinking he had tamed that lion. After the friend cited examples, however, Franklin conceded that he required more work in this area. He added a thirteenth virtue: 13. Humility Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”
― H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin