The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
1791
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
1791
It invented the American Dream. Before Benjamin Franklin wrote this, the idea that a person's fate wasn't fixed by birth was radical. He wrote not merely to recount his life but to demonstrate, for his son and every reader since, how deliberate practice and self-discipline could reshape reality. The autobiography pulses with this conviction: that ordinary people can do extraordinary things through will, curiosity, and plain hard work. Franklin traces his journey from candle-maker's son in Boston to the heights of American influence. He details his apprenticeship in his brother's printing shop, his escape to Philadelphia as a runaway teenager, his rise as a printer and publisher, his experiments with electricity, his diplomatic triumphs in France, and his founding of institutions, from libraries to fire companies to the nation itself. The book is remarkably self-aware. Franklin admits to youthful vanity, recounts his own scheming, and maintains a wry, pragmatic tone throughout. It ends when he was fifty-two, unfinished, but what remains is a vivid portrait of the original self-made man, and an argument, still powerful today, that character is a project, not a birthright.
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“Never confuse Motion with Action.””
— Benjamin Franklin
“...there will be sleeping enough in the grave....””
— Benjamin Franklin
“When the well is dry we know the value of water””
— Benjamin Franklin
“Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself””
— Benjamin Franklin
“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.””
— Benjamin Franklin
“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.””
— Benjamin Franklin
“1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you...””
— Benjamin Franklin
“My Parents had early given me religious Impressions, and brought me through my Childhood piously in the Dissenting Way. But I was scarce 15 when, after doubting by turns of several Points as I found them disputed in the different Books I read, . Some Books against Deism fell into my Hands; they were said to be the Substance of Sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an Effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them: For the Arguments of the Deists which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much Stronger than the Refutations. .[]””
— Benjamin Franklin
“it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright””
— Benjamin Franklin
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![Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 2 Of 2]with His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fd3b2n8gj62qnwr.cloudfront.net%2FCOVERS%2Fgutenberg_covers75k%2Febook-40236.png&w=3840&q=75)
![Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 Of 2]with His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fd3b2n8gj62qnwr.cloudfront.net%2FCOVERS%2Fgutenberg_covers75k%2Febook-36338.png&w=3840&q=75)
