Browse 6 quotations connecting Benjamin Franklin with Identity, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include The Way to Wealth, Poor Richard’s Almanack. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include The Way to Wealth, Poor Richard’s Almanack.
“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.”
The joke distinguishes healthy self-respect from vanity by showing how self-adoration can become a closed competition with everyone else.
Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack.
“He that hath a trade hath an estate.”
A useful skill or trade is treated as a durable asset because it can keep producing value even when stored wealth is limited.
Source note: The Way to Wealth, where Father Abraham repeats maxims associated with Poor Richard.
“Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them.”
Franklin contrasts productive effort with passive discouragement, presenting earned income and continued work as practical ways to reduce obligations.
Source note: The Way to Wealth / Poor Richard Improved, industry section; represented by Project Gutenberg #43855. Father Abraham is compiling maxims from Franklin’s earlier Almanacks.
“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting.”
Income alone does not create financial security; keeping part of what is earned is presented as a necessary companion to earning it.
Source note: The Way to Wealth, Franklin’s compilation of Poor Richard maxims.
“A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.”
Financial independence earned through ordinary work is valued above status maintained through borrowing, dependence, or costly appearance.
Source note: The Way to Wealth, frugality section; Project Gutenberg #43855. Father Abraham contrasts industrious people with those reduced to borrowing by extravagance.
“If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.”
Borrowing makes the cost and scarcity of money concrete, turning an abstract idea of value into an immediate obligation.
Source note: The Way to Wealth, in Franklin’s discussion of debt and credit.