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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 79
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world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states, and princes, who have need
of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so
rare), have endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities were so
likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity.
My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having
kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show'd
itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the
right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of
which he convinc'd me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring
to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added
Humility to my list) giving an extensive meaning to the word.
I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I
had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear
all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion
of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use
of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix'd opinion, such
as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I
apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it so appears to me at
present. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd
myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately
some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in
certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present
case there appear'd or seem'd to me some difference, etc. I soon found the
advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on
more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them a
readier recep tion and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was
found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up
their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.
And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural
inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for
these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me.
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