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“At a great pennyworth pause a while.”
Voice: Authorial persona / framed maxim · Poor Richard maxim, repeated through Father Abraham
An unusually cheap offer deserves scrutiny because apparent savings can still produce a bad purchase when the buyer has no real need for it.
Source note: The Way to Wealth, frugality section; Project Gutenberg #43855. The maxim introduces Franklin’s distinction between apparent cheapness and genuine value.
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“Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.”
Money is framed as useful when directed toward chosen purposes but harmful when debt, interest, or appetite begins directing the person instead.
Source note: The Art of Money Getting, “Avoid Debt”; Project Gutenberg #8581. Barnum uses the servant-and-master metaphor while contrasting interest working for versus against the borrower.
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“Murder your darlings.”
The memorable command advises writers to delete showy passages they love when those passages serve vanity or ornament more than the work as a whole.
Source note: On the Art of Writing, Lecture XII, “On Style,” Project Gutenberg #17470; the phrase concludes Quiller-Couch’s warning against purchased or extraneous ornament.
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“let him simplify his baggage.”
Wagner turns simplification into a practical test: remove secondary burdens so attention and effort can return to what is genuinely essential.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter II, Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the phrase appears in Wagner’s argument for returning attention to essentials.
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“Thrift is the spirit of order in human life.”
Order means aligning limited resources with real priorities so that unnecessary disorder does not repeatedly consume time, money, and attention.
Source note: Thrift, Chapter V, “Examples of Thrift,” Project Gutenberg #14418. In the chapter’s opening discussion of domestic management, Smiles develops thrift as orderly use of household resources and then calls it the spirit of order in human life.
Source identified
“Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths.”
Voice: Authorial persona / framed maxim · Poor Richard maxim, repeated through Father Abraham
A low price does not make a purchase beneficial when the item is unnecessary or when buying it leaves too little for more important needs.
Source note: The Way to Wealth, frugality section; Project Gutenberg #43855. “Pennyworth” refers to an apparent bargain and the warning is about false economy.