“Much less is it adviseable for a Person to go thither [to America], who has no other Quality to recommend him but his Birth. In Europe it has indeed its Value; but it is a Commodity that cannot be carried to a worse Market than that of America, where people do not inquire concerning a Stranger, What is he? but, What can he do?”

— Benjamin Franklin

March 1784 Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.
1780s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Much less is it adviseable for a Person to go thither [to America], who has no other Quality to recommend him but his B…" by Benjamin Franklin?

Benjamin Franklin 183

American author, printer, political theorist, politician, p… 1706–1790

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“He seemed now to be also the embodiment of the fully emancipated male, perhaps the only one in America, the man who can do anything he wants, anything, can do it because he has money, the energy, and no apparent guilt. … The man who had everything, lost it, then got it back, letting nothing stand in his way, doing what few men can do.”

Gay Talese Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold (Esquire, April 1966)

“People today are more concerned with what they can get, than what they can give or do for others. That is why they cannot extend Ki.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

51
Ki Sayings (2003)
Context: Some people are quick to find reasons and excuses why they cannot do things. This cuts their Ki and in times stifles their motivation altogether. Motivation is extending Ki, not receiving it. People today are more concerned with what they can get, than what they can give or do for others. That is why they cannot extend Ki. <!-- Even our own training can be as intoku or good done in secret. Because someday it will bear fruit in the ability to help others develop.

“The poet needs to be deluded about his poems—for who can be sure that it is delusion? In his strongest hours the public hardly exists for the writer; he does what he ought to do, has to do, and if afterwards some Public wishes to come and crown him with laurel crowns, well, let it! if critics wish to tell people all that he isn’t, well, let them—he knows what he is. But at night when he can’t get to sleep it seems to him that it is what he is, his own particular personal quality, that he is being disliked for. It is this that the future will like him for, if it likes him for anything; but will it like him for anything? The poet’s hope is in posterity, but it is a pale hope; and now that posterity itself has become a pale hope…”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Poets, Critics, and Readers”, p. 109
No Other Book: Selected Essays (1999)

“I felt comparatively happy, but I can assure the reader that I had had a far worse time of it than I have told him; and I strongly recommend him to remain in Europe if he can; or, at any rate, in some country which has been explored and settled, rather than go into places where others have not been before him. Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 4

“But I also see a problem where a lot of people don't believe in the American idea anymore. The condition of your birth doesn't determine the outcome of your life. This is America, you can make it. You work hard, play by the rules, you can rise, you can do well. That's what we're taught, that's what we believe, that's what we think of as America. Problem is, there are just generations of people in this country who do not think that.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

“No, what was sad in his case was that he, who didn’t care for carved oak, should have his drawing-room panelled with it, while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to be the rule of this world. Each person has what he doesn’t want, and other people have what he does want.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat (1889), Ch. 6.

“What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has or how he is regarded by others.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)
Context: Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do. And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side. America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected. Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.

“Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Benjamin Franklin 183

Related quotes

Related topics