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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 82
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creditors.
This is as much as I can now recollect of the project, except that I
communicated it in part to two young men, who adopted it with some enthusiasm;
but my then narrow circumstances, and the necessity I was under of sticking
close to my business, occasion'd my postponing the further prosecution of it at
that time; and my multifarious occupations, public and private, induc'd me to
continue postponing, so that it has been omitted till I have no longer strength
or activity left sufficient for such an enterprise; tho' I am still of opinion
that it was a practicable scheme, and might have been very useful, by forming a
great number of good citizens; and I was not discourag'd by the seeming
magnitude of the undertaking, as 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.
In 1732 I first publish'd my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders; it
was continu'd by me about twenty-five years, commonly call'd Poor Richard's
Almanac. I endeavor'd to make it both entertaining and useful, and it
accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reap'd considerable profit from
it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally
read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I consider'd it
as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who
bought scarcely any other books; I therefore filled all the little spaces that
occurr'd between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences,
chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring
wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want,
to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, it is hard for an
empty sack to stand up-right.
These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations, I assembled
and form'd into a connected discourse prefix'd to the Almanack of 1757, as the
harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. The bringing all
these scatter'd counsels thus into a focus enabled them to make greater
impression. The piece, being universally approved, was copied in all the
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