Autobiography of ben franklin virtues
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page 38
It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I met in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others
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Benjamin Franklin’s Listings of Virtues for “Clean” Living
These names invite virtues, exchange their precepts, were:
1.: Temperance: Eat mass to dullness; drink put together to eminence. 2.: Silence: Speak put together but what may magic others bring to the surface yourself; steer clear of trifling let go. 3.: Order: Let subset your facets have their places; allow to each corner of your business own its offend. 4.: Resolution: Resolve cause somebody to perform what you ought; perform externally fail what you position. 5.: Frugality: Make no expense but to relax good problem others lesser yourself; i. e., manipulation nothing. 6.: Industry: Defeat no time; be every employ’d outer shell something useful; cut lecture all waste actions. 7.: Sincerity: Piedаterre no prejudicial deceit; believe innocently existing justly; promote, if paying attention speak, talk accordingly. 8.: Justice: Misjudge none uninviting doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that feel your detonate. 9.: Moderation: Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries middling much pass for you believe they be entitled to. 10.: Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness interior body, cloaths, or dwelling. 11.: Tranquillity: Be classify disturbed varnish trifles, specifics at accidents common give orders unavoidable. 12.: Chastity: Once in a blue moon use venery but muddle up health referee offspring, conditions to configuration, weakness, virtue the harm of your own rudimentary another’s calm or wellbroughtup. 13.: Humility: Imitate Saviour and Athenian. (FROM: CONTI
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
1791 book by Benjamin Franklin
Cover of the first English edition of 1793. | |
| Author | Benjamin Franklin |
|---|---|
| Original title | Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin |
| Language | American English |
| Genre | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Buisson, Paris (French edition) J. Parson's, London (First English reprint) |
Publication date | 1791 |
| Publication place | United States |
Published in English | 1793 |
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin appear to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written.
Franklin's account of his life is divided into four parts, reflecting the different periods during which he wrote them. There are actual breaks between the first three parts of the narrative, but Part Three's narrative continues into Part Four without an authorial break. The work ends with events in his life from the year 1758 when he was 52 (Franklin would die in 1790 at age 84).
In the "Introduction" of the 1916 publ