Benjamin Franklin's Thoughts on Moral Perfection

   "I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd 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 employ'd 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 had met with 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 it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning.
 
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

1. Temperance

    Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. Silence.

    Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order.

    Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution.

    Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality.

    Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i. e., waste nothing.

6. Industry.

    Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity.

    Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice.

    Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation.

    Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness.

    Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

11. Tranquillity.

    Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. Chastity.

13. Humility.

Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

   Benjamin Franklin's Way to Wealth

Small Savings Build Fortunes

 "We won't get much here," whispered a lady to her companion, as John Murray blew out one of the two candles by whose light he had been writing when they asked him to contribute to some benevolent object. He listened to their story and gave one hundred dollars. "Mr. Murray, I am very agreeably surprised," said the lady quoted; "I did not expect to get a cent from you." The old Quaker asked the reason for her opinion; and, when told, said, "That, ladies, is the reason I am able to let you have the hundred dollars. It is by practicing economy that I save up money with which to do charitable actions. One candle is enough to talk by."

    Emerson relates the following anecdote: "An opulent merchant in Boston was called on by a friend in behalf of a charity. At that time he was admonishing his clerk for using whole wafers instead of halves; his friend thought the circumstance unpropitious; but to his surprise, on listening to the appeal, the merchant subscribed five hundred dollars. The applicant expressed his astonishment that any person who was so particular about half a wafer should present five hundred dollars to a charity; but the merchant said, "It is by saving half wafers, and attending to such little things, that I have now something to give."

     "How did you acquire your great fortune?" asked a friend of Lampis, the shipowner. "My great fortune, easily," was the reply, "my small one, by dint of exertion."


    Four years from the time Marshall Field left the rocky New England farm to seek his fortune in Chicago he was admitted as a partner in the firm of Coaley, Farwell & Co. The only reason the modest young man gave, to explain his promotion when he had neither backing, wealth, nor influence, was that he saved his money.

If  you begin at age twenty and save just three dollars every day, investing at 7% compound interest, you could have $150,000 when you reach 55 years old.  A few dollars each day is no unusual expenditure for beer or cigarettes, yet in fifty years it could easily amount to $250,000. The key is to start saving your money early.
 
   The money we spend on just one vice would bring up two children.

Such rigid economy, such high courage, enables one to surprise the world with gifts even if he is poor. In fact, the poor and the middle classes give most in the aggregate to missions and hospitals and to the poor. Only frugality enables them to outdo the rich on their own ground.