Book of Ages Quotes

“One Half of the World does not know how the other Half lives,” Franklin once wrote. His sister is his other Half.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Magazines were new. The Gentleman’s Magazine—the first periodical called a “magazine”—appeared in London in 1731. It offered “a Monthly Collection, to treasure up, as in a Magazine, the most remarkable Pieces.”3 The metaphor is to weapons. A magazine is, literally, an arsenal; a piece is a firearm.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“As James Madison explained, the Constitution is “of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed … THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“The only difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, Franklin joked, is that the former is infallible while the latter is never in the wrong.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“By the Collision of different Sentiments,” Franklin wrote, “Sparks of Truth are struck out, and political Light is obtained.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“The virtue she valued most was faith. It had no place on Franklin’s list. She placed her trust in Providence. He placed his faith in man.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“He counted thirteen virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity, and humility. Soon”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous Customs in the world, considering us as a Civilised and a Christian Countrey, that we deny the advantages of Learning to Women.” Like”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Mr. Van Doren was too civilized a man to be interested only in the great.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“The Dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit to God who gave it.’ ”14”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“history’s grossest distortion of reality stems not from its false claims to truth but, instead, from its exclusive interest in the great.15”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Deeds, Edwards argued, counted as much as words. Devotion, submission, obedience, resignation: these were not enough. He quoted the third chapter of First John: “Let us not love in Word, neither in Tongue, but in Deed.”15”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“When a man was arrested for debt, his wife and children often went to prison with him, having no place else to go.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“his person may be arrested and imprisoned where he shall be kept at his owne charge,”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“For a long time, the colonies had been a debtors’ asylum. Two out of three people who left England for America were debtors; creditors found it all but impossible to pursue debtors across the Atlantic.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Franklin never recovered from this child’s death. No one ever does.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“with Acts 16:9 issuing out of his mouth: “come over and help us.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“No woman can be gotten with child without some knowledg, consent and delight in the acting thereof.” Charles J. Hoadly, ed., Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven, From May, 1653, to the Union (Hartford: Case, Lockwood, 1858), 123;”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Fiction is the history of the obscure.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“She found, in visits, relief from the aches of old age. “I have Even in my self in times Past Lost the snse of Paine for some time by the Injoyment of good Company.” She”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”18”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“that people so often believe themselves to be right is no proof that they are.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“I imagine there are few, if any, in the World, so weake as to imagine, that the little Good we can do here, can merit so vast a Reward hereafter. There”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately,”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“he took the trouble to offer “a few gentle Reproofs on those who deserve them,” including Harvard students.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“Early Menstruation renders the Uteri Hard & dry; so that they ought not to prompt the early appearance by obscene books, and frequent touchings.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“A girl’s apprenticeship was girlhood itself. A”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

“She was curious, and she could be untoward. But she was dutiful. She was pared to fit.”
― Jill Lepore, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin