In reading the following lines from Franklin, let us reflect that not less than a year went to the writing of every phrase that can be called great; and that if we could spend a year in writing a single sentence, it might be as well worth preserving as these proverbs. Some men have been made famous by one sentence, usually because it somehow expressed the substance of a lifetime.
From “Poor Richard's Almanac.”
Father Abraham stood up and replied, “If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; for a word to the wise is enough, and essay words won't fill a bushel, as POOR RICHARD says.”
They all joined him and desired him to speak his mind; and gathering them around him, he proceeded as follows:
Friends, says he, and neighbors! The taxes are indeed very heavy; and if those laid on by the Government were the only ones we had to pay, we might the more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our Pride, and four times as much by our Folly; and from these taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us, God helps them that helps themselves, as POOR RICHARD says in his Almanac of 1733. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service. But idleness taxes many of us much more; if we reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth, or doing of nothing; with that which is spent in idle employments or amusements that amounts to nothing. Sloth, by bringing on disease, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like Rust, consumes faster than Labor wean; while the used keg is always bright, as POOR RICHARD says. But dost thou love Life? Then do not squander time! for that's the stuff Life is made of, as POOR RICHARD says.
How much more time than is necessary do we spend in sleep? forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry; and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave, as POOR RICHARD says.
If Time be of all things the most precious, wasting of Time must be (as POOR RICHARD says) the greatest prodigality; and since, as he elsewhere tells us, Lost time is never found again; and what we call Time enough! always proves little enough, let us then up and be doing, and doing to the purpose: so, by diligence, shall we do more with less perplexity. Sloth makes all things difficult, but Industry all things easy, as POOR RICHARD says: and He that riseth late, must trot all day; and shall scarce overtake his business at night. While Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon over-takes him, as we read in POOR RICHARD who adds, Drive thy business! Let not that drive thee! and Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
As Franklin extracted these sayings one by one out of the Arabic and other sources, in each case giving the phrases a new turn, and as Bacon jotted down in his notebook every witty word he heard, so we will make reputations for ourselves if we are always picking up the good things of others and using them whenever we can.
THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH
By Abraham Lincoln.