Benjamin Franklin

Quotes are word for word from the source.

• Dietary habits

  “I have since that period observed several Lents with the greatest strictness, and have suddenly returned again to my ordinary diet, without experiencing the smallest inconvenience”

  Our noteFranklin discusses his experience with sudden changes in diet and regimen.

• Mutual improvement

  “Our object in this competition was to benefit each other by our mutual remarks, criticisms, and corrections; and as style and expression were all we had in view”

  Our noteFranklin explains the purpose of a writing competition among his friends.

• Retention and transfer

  “Non-electric bodies, that have electric fire thrown into them, will retain it till other electrics, that have less, approach”

  Our noteFranklin explains the basic principle of how electricity is stored and then discharged between objects.

• Value of imperfect ideas

  “for, even a bad solution read, and its faults discovered, has often given rise to a good one, in the mind of an ingenious reader.”

  Our noteFranklin explains why he shares his current theories even though he has doubts about their absolute accuracy.

• Concise communication

  “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to abridge it.”

  Our noteFranklin apologizes for the length of his scientific report because he lacked the time to edit it down.

• Admitting hasty conclusions

  “Living far from the sea, I had then no opportunity of making experiments on the sea-water, and so embraced this opinion too hastily.”

  Our noteFranklin reflects on his earlier incorrect hypothesis about the source of lightning.

• Accepting failed experiments

  “I accordingly made the experiment, but it did not succeed.”

  Our noteFranklin briefly notes the failure of an experiment involving bellows and air friction.

• Practical tool construction

  “Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended”

  Our noteFranklin provides specific instructions for building the electrical kite.

• Environmental impact on results

  “Yet when the air is very dry, the apparatus will continue to be electrised for ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, after the clouds have passed”

  Our noteHe notes how environmental conditions like humidity affect the duration of electrical charges.

• Funding self education

  “I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books.”

  Our noteFranklin saved money on food to afford more books for his studies.

• Hidden hiring motives

  “I soon perceived that the intention of engaging me at wages so much higher than he had been used to give was to have these raw, cheap hands formed through me”

  Our noteFranklin realizes his employer Keimer hired him primarily to train cheaper workers.

• Power of Planning

  “I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan”

  Our noteFranklin reflects on how a single focused individual can achieve massive goals through structured planning.

• Focusing Content

  “The bringing all these scattered counsels thus into a focus enabled them to make greater impression.”

  Our noteFranklin discusses the impact of compiling his proverbs into a single discourse.

• Sharing Inventions Freely

  “I declined it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions; namely, that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours”

  Our noteFranklin explains why he refused a patent for his new stove design.

• Installment Based Funding

  “By so dividing it I judged the subscription might be larger, and I believe it was so, amounting to no less, if I remember right, than five thousand pounds.”

  Our noteFranklin describes his strategy for raising funds for a new academy.

• Initial investment costs

  “To do this a variety of improvements were necessary. Some of these were inevitably at first expensive, so that in the first four years the office became above nine hundred pounds in debt to us”

  Our noteFranklin explains the financial risk taken to improve the American post office system.

• Qualities of leadership

  “Shirley was not a bred soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution.”

  Our noteFranklin compares the effective leadership of General Shirley with the incompetence of Lord Loudoun.

• Starting from nothing

  “I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to, or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket.”

  Our noteFranklin describes his vulnerable situation when he first arrived in New York to start his career.

• Path to independence

  “by steady industry and a prudent parsimony I might save enough by the time I was one-and-twenty to set me up; and that, if I came near the matter, he would help me out with the rest.”

  Our noteFranklin's father offers a conditional plan for Benjamin to start his own business in the future.

• Personal discipline

  “I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer.”

  Our noteFranklin observes the drinking habits of his colleagues at the London printing house.

• Honest Debt Management

  “I wrote him an ingenuous letter of acknowledgment, crav'd his forbearance a little longer, which he allow'd me, and as soon as I was able, I paid the principal with interest, and many thanks”

  Our noteFranklin explains how he handled a debt to Mr. Vernon by being transparent and paying interest.

• Quality over originality

  “I rather approv'd his giving us good sermons compos'd by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture, tho' the latter was the practice of our common teachers.”

  Our noteFranklin discusses a preacher who was criticized for using other people's sermons instead of writing his own.

• Gamified learning

  “Finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare for study, I at length refus'd to play any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task”

  Our noteFranklin turned his chess hobby into a language learning tool by betting study tasks on the outcome.

• Securing financial credit

  “The fund for paying them was the interest of all the paper currency then extant in the province upon loan, together with the revenue arising from the excise”

  Our noteFranklin describes the backing that gave his new financial orders instant value.

• Opportunity cost of time

  “Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, rather thrown away, five shillings, besides.”

  Our noteFranklin explains the concept of opportunity cost to a young tradesman.

• Signaling diligence

  “The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or eight at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer”

  Our noteFranklin explains how visible hard work increases a businessman's creditworthiness.

• Maintaining secrecy

  “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

  Our noteA cynical observation on the difficulty of keeping secrets in groups.

• Judging by results

  “I think opinions should be judged of by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous”

  Our noteFranklin writes to his father about how to evaluate personal beliefs.

• Difficulty of consensus

  “Every Body cries, a Union is absolutely necessary, but when they come to the Manner and Form of the Union, their weak Noddles are perfectly distracted.”

  Our noteFranklin comments on the difficulty of getting people to agree on the specifics of a union.

• Avoiding Disputation

  “disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company”

  Our noteFranklin warns against the habit of constant contradiction and arguing for its own sake.