
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)
The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
Source: Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't
Quoted in The Perfect Way in Diet by Anna Kingsford (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1881), p. 14 https://archive.org/stream/perfectwayindie00kinggoog#page/n36.
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
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.
Franklin himself calls this an "old maxim" when he repeats it at page 48 http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobiography/page48.htm of his autobiography.
Franklin's recognition of this effect caused it to be named after him. Wikipedia, Ben Franklin Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect.
Misattributed
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet
Watchword for the Roman Republic (1849)