Benjamin Franklin citations célèbres
“Bien faire en faisant ce qui est bon.”
Doing Well by Doing Good.
en
L'un des plus fameux slogans de Benjamin Franklin cité dans la préface par Luc-François Salvador, Chairman and CEO de Sogeti
I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
en
Tiré de On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor (1766)
They who can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
en
Franklin cite une lettre de 1755 de l'Assemblée de Pennsylvanie au gouverneur de cet état. Bien qu'elle lui soit souvent attribuée, il n'est pas clairement établi que la phrase soit de lui.
Benjamin Franklin: Citations en anglais
Widely quoted statement on the reasons for the American War of Independence sometimes cited as being from Franklin's autobiography, but this statement was never in any edition.
Variants from various small publications from the 1940s:
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the Colonies to operate on an honest Colonial system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate on an honest, colonial money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
Some of the statement might be derived from those made during his examination by the British Parliament in February 1766, published in "The Examination of Benjamin Franklin" in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (1813); when questioned why Parliament had lost respect among the people of the Colonies, he answered: "To a concurrence of causes: the restraints lately laid on their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver into the Colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making paper money among themselves, and then demanding a new and heavy tax by stamps; taking away, at the same time, trials by juries, and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions".
Misattributed
Variante: The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England and the Rothschild's Bank took away from the colonies their money which created unemployment, dissatisfaction and debt.
“[A] great Empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges.”
"Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One"; The Public Advertiser (September 11, 1773).
1770s
From a note of uncertain date by Dr. James McHenry. In a footnote he added that "The lady here aluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philada." Published in The American Historical Review, v. 11, p. 618. At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 http://www.bartleby.com/73/1593.html
Constitutional Convention of 1787
"Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion" (1728).
1720s
Claimed by American Fascist William Dudley Pelley in Liberation (February 3, 1934) to have appeared in notes taken at the Constitutional Convention by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; reported as debunked in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 26-27, noting that historian Charles A. Beard conducted a thorough investigation of the attribution and found it to be false. The quote appears in no source prior to Pelley's publication, contains anachronisms, and contradicts Franklin's own financial support of the construction of a synagogue in Philadelphia. Many variations of the above have been made, including adding to "the Christian religion" the phrase "upon which this nation was founded, by objecting to its restrictions"; adding to "strangle that country to death financially" the phrase "as in the case of Spain and Portugal". See Michael Feldberg, "The Myth of Ben Franklin's Anti-Semitism, in Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History (2003), p. 134.
Misattributed
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
Benjamin Franklin proposed this as the motto on the Great Seal of the United States http://www.greatseal.com/committees/firstcomm/reverse.html. It is often falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson because he endorsed the motto. It may have been inspired by a similar quote made by Simon Bradstreet after the 1688 overthrow of Edmund Andros. Bradstreet's quote is found in two sources: Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the State Convention: assembled May 4th, 1853 (1853) by the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, p. 502 and A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore (1883) by Samuel Adams Drake. p. 426.
Decade unclear
Letter to David Hartley (December 4, 1789); reported in Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907), Volume 10, p. 72; often quoted as, "Where liberty dwells, there is my country".
Decade unclear
There is no evidence that Franklin ever actually said or wrote this, but it's remarkably similar a quote often attributed, without proper sourcing, to Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexander Fraser Tytler:
:A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.
Misattributed
Appeal for the Hospital The Pennsylvania Gazette (8 August 1751).
1760s
“Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”
Poor Richard's Almanack (1756); this has also been quoted in a paraphrased form used by Bill Clinton in [ 1998 address to Beijing University http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/122320.stm, as "Our critics are our friends, they show us our faults".
Poor Richard's Almanack
Quoted in Money and Men by Robert McCann Rice (1941) but no prior source is extant.
Misattributed
“These Names of Virtues with their Precepts were”
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to Dulness. Drink not to Elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or your self. 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 speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no Uncleanliness in Body, Clothes, or Habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates. [Part II, pp. 67-68]
The last of Franklin's chart of 13 virtues: "My List of Virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker Friend having kindly inform'd me that I was generally thought proud; … I determined endeavouring to cure myself if I could of this Vice or Folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my List..."
Part II, p. 75.
The Autobiography (1818)
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Statement at the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1776-07-04), quoted as an anecdote in The Works of Benjamin Franklin by Jared Sparks (1840). However, this had earlier been attributed to Richard Penn in Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania, Within the Last Sixty Years (1811, p. 116 http://books.google.com/books?id=TwYFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA116&vq=%22hang+together%22). In 1801, "If we don't hang together, by Heavens we shall hang separately" appears in the English play Life by Frederick Reynolds (Life, Frederick Reynolds, in a collection by Mrs Inchbald, 1811, Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=egsLAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA176 first published in 1801 http://www.lib.muohio.edu/multifacet/record/mu3ugb2568779), and the remark was later attributed to 'An American General' by Reynolds in his 1826 memoir p.358 http://books.google.com/books?id=_MQEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA358&dq=general's. A comparable pun on "hang alone … hang together" appears in Dryden's 1717 The Spanish Fryar Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PgoOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PT19. The pun also appears in an April 14, 1776 letter from Carter Braxton to Landon Carter, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, Vol.1 (1921) http://books.google.com/books?id=7TMSAAAAYAAJ, p.421, as "a true saying of a Wit — We must hang together or separately."
Attributed
Letter to Peter Collinson (29 December 1754); published in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1905), edited by Albert Henry Smyth, Vol. III, p. 242; also misquoted using "Noodles" for "Noddles".
Epistles
Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, September 1753.
1750s
“A penny saved is two pence clear.”
"Hints For Those That Would Be Rich", Poor Richard's Almanack (1737)
Poor Richard's Almanack
“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”
This seems to have been first attributed to Franklin in The New Age Magazine Vol. 66 (1958), and the earliest appearance of it yet located is in Coronet magazine, Vol. 34 (1953), p. 27, where it was attributed to a Louise Stein; it thus seems likely to have been derived from an earlier statement of Harry Emerson Fosdick, On Being a Real Person (1943) : "At very best, a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package".
Misattributed
March 1784 Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.
1780s
“Man [is a] tool-making animal.”
Quoted by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1778 https://books.google.de/books?id=nuINAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA199&dq=tool-making (1791).
Decade unclear
"July. VII Month.", Poor Richard's Almanack (1758), Philadelphia: B. Frankin and D. Hall
Poor Richard's Almanack
“If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few.”
Poor Richard's Almanack (1736), http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/frapos/index.html November
Poor Richard's Almanack
Letter to his father, 13 April 1738, printed in Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia, 1834), volume 1, p. 233. Also quoted in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) by Walter Isaacson
Epistles
“Each man has two countries, I think: His own, and France.”
Henri de Bornier, La Fille de Roland, act III, scene ii, p. 65 (1875): "Tout homme a deux pays, le sien et puis la France!"
Also misattributed to Thomas Jefferson in 1880 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940CE2DB143FEE3ABC4151DFB166838B699FDE
Misattributed
“A penny saved is a penny got.”
Preface, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)
Poor Richard's Almanack
Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania reported in Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (1907), vol. 10, pp. 57–58.
Decade unclear
Part III, p. 98.
The Autobiography (1818)
“In 200 years will people remember us as traitors or heros? That is the question we must ask.”
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (March 16th, 1775).
Epistles
Letter to Joseph Huey (6 June 1753); published in Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, p. 144.
Epistles
“Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly: Men freely ford that see the shallows.”
Poor Richard's Almanack (1743)
Poor Richard's Almanack
