The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Key Takeaways

Benjamin Franklin’s self-portrait is, more than anything, a record of a deliberate self-improvement project — the conviction that “one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes” if he “first forms a good plan” and makes its execution “his sole study and business.” A few threads recur:

• Systematic virtue. Franklin’s Thirteen Virtues — temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility — are a habit-tracking system avant la lettre, the direct ancestor of the modern Atomic Habits approach to building character one tracked behavior at a time.
• The Ben Franklin Effect. “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.” Franklin won over a political rival not by flattering him but by asking him for a favor (the loan of a rare book) — letting the rival’s own act of kindness rewrite his feelings.
• Motivated Reasoning. The cod-fishing episode is one of literature’s cleanest illustrations of rationalization: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
• The Speckled Ax. Franklin’s parable about the man who settles for a “speckled” rather than a fully-polished ax — a candid meditation on the diminishing returns of perfectionism and the gravitational pull of “good enough.”
• Disputation loses goodwill. “These disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.” Winning the argument and winning the person are different games.

Connections

• Atomic Habits — Franklin’s virtue ledger is the proto-habit-tracker; both treat character as something built by deliberate, measured repetition.
• American Sphinx — founding-era memoir; Franklin appears in person there, soothing Thomas Jefferson during the editing of the Declaration with the “sign painter and the hat” story.
• Thirteen Virtues — Franklin’s thirteen-item moral ledger (temperance through humility), worked one virtue at a time, is the book’s central self-improvement system.
• Ben Franklin Effect — Franklin won over a hostile House member by asking to borrow a rare book, letting the rival’s own act of kindness convert him into a lifelong friend.
• Motivated Reasoning — the cod-fishing episode (“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature”) is one of the cleanest illustrations of rationalizing a conclusion one has already chosen.
• Rationalization — same cod-fishing passage: Franklin’s ability to “find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
• Compounding — “Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune… as by little advantages that occur every day,” Franklin’s case for accumulation over windfalls.
• Writing — Franklin frames the memoir itself as a way to “live one’s life over again” by setting recollection down in durable writing.

Highlights

• Referring to Franklin’s belief in not eating animals — “I balanced some time between principle and inclination, until I recollected that, when the fish [I caught] were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then I thought, ‘If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.’ So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
• “I approved the amusing one’s self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one’s language, but no farther.”
• “I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.”
• “The next thing most like living one’s life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing.”
• “Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful.”
• “I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partnerships, for, whatever esteem partners may have for, and confidence in each other at the time of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the business, etc., which are attended often with breach of friendship and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences.”
• “Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”
• In reference to a man Franklin knew — “He had some reason for loving to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, generally successful in argumentative conversation. He had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner; but I think the practice was not wise, for, in the course of my observation, these disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.”
• “This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbor, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel; he turn’d while the smith press’d the broad face of the ax hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at length would take his ax as it was, without further grinding. ‘No,’ said the smith, ‘turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by; as yet, it is only speckled.’ ‘Yes,’ says the man, ‘but I think I like a speckled ax best.’”
• Referring to a disagreeable acquaintance of Franklin’s who was not on his side — “I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book; I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasion, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says ‘He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.’”
• Benjamin Franklin’s virtues:
  • Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation
  • Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation
  • Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
  • Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
  • Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself i.e. waste nothing.
  • Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
  • Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
  • Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
  • Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve
  • Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
  • Tranquility: Be not disturbed by trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable
  • Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
  • Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates