Benjamin Franklin : His Autobiography: With a Narrative of His Public Life and ServicesDerby & Jackson, 1859 - 549 pages |
Common terms and phrases
acquainted adelphia affairs afterward agent America answer appeared appointed arrived Assembly Benjamin Franklin Boston Britain British captain character colonies commissioners Congress continued conversation defense desired disputes doctor duty endeavored enemies England father favor France Franklin French friends gave give Gnadenhutten governor hands honor hundred Indians instructions Joseph Galloway Keimer letter lodging London Lord Chatham Lord Dartmouth Lord Hillsborough Lord Kames Lord Loudoun measures ment minister ministry never obtained occasion officers opinion paid pamphlet paper Parliament party Pennsylvania persons petition Philadelphia pounds sterling present printed printer printing-house procure proposed proprietaries province Quakers Ralph received respect sailed seemed sent ship soon Stamp Act street taken thing Thomas Penn thought thousand pounds tion told took treaty wagons William Temple Franklin writing wrote young
Popular passages
Page 116 - Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit; and fill my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!
Page 116 - Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in must be happy.
Page 114 - I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue, upon that day.* FORM OF THE PAGES.
Page 26 - I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so ; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons ; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time...
Page 93 - I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money ; a very profitable job and a great help to me.
Page 507 - THE BODY of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here food for worms ; yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by THE AUTHOR.
Page 25 - While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method ; and soon after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method.
Page 86 - I compos'd of it a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press; it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's work, for the little jobs sent in by our other friends now and then put us back.
Page 21 - We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice...
Page 112 - My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time ; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone through the thirteen...