Way to Wealth, and Alphabetical Quotes

openlibrary.org has the full contents of an 1814 publication of Franklin’s Way to Wealth online here, readable as text or PDF.

archive.org has the same pamphlet viewable gloriously here, with the bookplate of the Children’s Book Collection of the Library of UCLA and Elvah Karshner viewable inside the front cover.

The alphabetical list of quotes starts on page 20 as “ALPHABETICAL MAXIMS – Worthy the remembrance and regard of all; selected by Bob Short.” Very nice work, Mr. Short!

I wanted to leave with a little quote from this time when talk of “partial government shutdowns” and “sequesters” is at all corners:

Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times?
Will not those heavy taxes quite ruin the country!

Alas, I copied the punctuation correctly from this edition; Mr. Short did not do as well: that second sentence is obviously a question, not an exclamation.

Clearly, the most authoritative online place to read the true Preface to Poor Richard, Improved of 1758 (or pretty much anything else by Franklin) is at the Digital Edition offering of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin project at Yale, available at franklinpapers.org.

But that 1841 edition has a charm all its own.