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Source identified
“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”

Benjamin Franklin · Authorial persona / framed maxim · Poor Richard maxim, repeated through Father Abraham

Source
The Way to Wealth
Date
1758
Attribution
Source identified
Voice / speaker
Authorial persona / framed maxim · Poor Richard maxim, repeated through Father Abraham
Meaning

What does this quote mean?

Small recurring costs can matter more than they appear individually, so careful attention to minor spending is part of long-term financial discipline.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Way to Wealth; Father Abraham repeats the Poor Richard maxim while warning about small but cumulative expenses.

Primary / edition source ↗

Voice attribution

Who voices the line?

Authorial persona / framed maxim · Poor Richard maxim, repeated through Father Abraham. The Way to Wealth is framed as Father Abraham’s address compiling maxims Franklin had published through the Poor Richard / Richard Saunders persona. This record therefore preserves the framed authorial-persona layer instead of treating the maxim as unmediated Franklin narration.

The source author and the local speaker can be different, especially in fiction, drama, dialogue and poetry.

Attribution

How should this attribution be read?

This wording is connected with the named source shown above. Translations and editions can vary, so consult the source note when exact wording matters.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

BusinessDisciplineHabitsMoneyResponsibilitySelf-ControlShortSuccessWisdom
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.”
Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack · 18th century

Leisure is easier to protect when working time is used deliberately, linking time management with freedom rather than treating organization as an end in itself.

Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack; the maxim connects disciplined use of working time with the ability to gain leisure.

Source identified
“Thrift is merely common sense in every-day working action.”
Samuel Smiles · Thrift · 1875

The principle is made practical rather than glamorous: ordinary, repeated decisions about work and spending matter more than occasional dramatic gestures.

Source note: Thrift, Chapter II, “Habits of Thrift,” Project Gutenberg #14418. Smiles says thrift requires neither exceptional courage nor intellect but ordinary common sense, resistance to selfish enjoyment and patient self-denial.

Source identified
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”
Proverbs · King James Bible — Proverbs 6:6 · 1611

The proverb uses the ant as an example of self-directed preparation, turning observation of repeated practical behavior into a lesson about disciplined habits.

Source note: Proverbs 6:6 in the King James Version; the following verses describe the ant preparing food without an overseer.

Source identified
“The master-word is Work”
William Osler · The Master-Word in Medicine · 1903

Osler makes sustained work the organizing principle of his address to medical students, emphasizing disciplined practice over brilliance without application.

Source note: The Master-Word in Medicine, address at the opening of the University of Toronto medical faculty buildings, October 1, 1903. This collection treats the line as historical professional rhetoric and not as an endorsement of excessive working hours.

Source identified
“America is the Land of Labour”
Benjamin Franklin · Information to Those Who Would Remove to America · 1784

Franklin rejects European fantasies of effortless prosperity in eighteenth-century North America, emphasizing that newcomers should expect productive labor rather than automatic wealth or patronage.

Source note: Information to Those Who Would Remove to America, before March 1784; Founders Online. This is historical emigration advice written for Europeans and is not a claim about present-day U.S. labor or immigration conditions.