“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.” — from Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
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“Franklin went on to catalog the most common conversational sins “which cause dislike,” the greatest being “talking overmuch…which never fails to excite resentment.” — from Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
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“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.” — from Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
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“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.” — from Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
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“…only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch’d me from my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas’d at the stores thro’ the streets on a wheelbarrow.” — from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
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“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, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.” — from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
How bad do you want it?
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“I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of beer.” — from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
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“I remained there alone, and, despatching presently my light repast which often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook’s, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.” - from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
For as much as Benjamin Franklin appears to talk about eating moderately you’d think he wouldn’t be so chubby.
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“My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact on me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.” — from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
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“While gambling at checkers with some shipmates, he formulated an “infallible rule,” which was that “if two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves money most shall lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him.” The rule, he decided, applied to other battles; a person who is too fearful will end up performing defensively and thus fail to seize offensive advantages.” — from Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
