The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: With Notes and a Sketch of Franklin's Life from the Point where the Autobiography Ends

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Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1886 - Inventors - 238 pages

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Page 22 - I had gone on making verses ; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound 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 103 - INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful ; cut off all unnecessary actions.
Page 25 - 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 engaged in promoting.
Page 22 - 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 90 - ... to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow.
Page 98 - Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men...
Page 20 - In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my...
Page 109 - And I believe this may have been the case with many, who, having, for want of some such means as I employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that "a speckled...
Page 20 - Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.

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