... The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. (Complete.): Prepared for Use in Schools. With Introduction, Notes, and a Supplementary Sketch, Concuding the Story of Franklin's Life, Presented Mainly in His Own Words

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Maynard, Merrill & Company, 1892 - 192 pages

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Page 85 - 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 20 - It appears to me, or / should not think it, so or so, for such and such reasons; or, / 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 engaged in promoting.
Page 18 - ... for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse ; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.
Page 17 - I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator...
Page 84 - I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid every the least offence against Temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I...
Page 20 - I took a delight in it, practised it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.
Page 23 - I did not give them any satisfaction, they contented themselves with admonishing me, and dismissed me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound to keep his master's secrets. During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal, notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the paper ; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a young genius that had...
Page 78 - Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men...
Page 191 - often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.
Page 85 - Length of days is in her right hand ; And in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace.

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