In response to a correspondent, let’s say S.S. writing to M.M., I’ve located the letter from A.A. regarding fire protection. This document happens to be the source of a famous Franklin phrase, An ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure, which was the subject of another recent inquiry. Franklin wrote over the pseudonym …
Maybe the most wonderful item I’ve seen come up for auction has appeared, coming up in California on July 3, 2025. It is this letter, pictured above, written by Benjamin Franklin to William Strahan on July 23, 1762. The full text of Franklin’s letter, as posted on the auction site, with some spacing, is: London, …
NAPEX 2025 was held June 6-8 in McLean, Virginia. This event combines the national conventions for several philatelic societies as well as the Virginia Postal History Society. This year, one of three special themes, highlighted on the cover of its program, was “Celebrating the Semiquincentennial of Benjamin Franklin as First U.S. Postmaster General, 1775.” As …
More a personal capturing of a tumultuous quarter-year than a Franklin tribute, my latest window is nonetheless founded on Franklin’s nostalgia for France and his friends there.
As a private tribute to a Dungeons and Dragons game that played out over 35 years, I made a stained glass window that combined a saying of Franklin’s from Poor Richard (May, 1735) with a drawing of a boat from that game. Pictured above is the main window in the home of a wizard in …
It often happens to me that I read a statement attributed to Franklin and get a vague sense that “it doesn’t sound like Franklin.” In one recent case, it became clear why a particular statement didn’t sound like Franklin, and I’d like to share it. This morning, The Hill published this statement: “A system where …
The quoted statement (in italics below) is one of his most famous, and the full paragraph is one of his most refreshing: I join with you most cordially in rejoicing at the Return of Peace. I hope it will be lasting, and that Mankind will at Length, as they call themselves reasonable Creatures, have Reason …
These are two of my favorite topics: Franklin and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. The two overlap in many ways, but I want to start with a quote of the library’s founder that I came across for the first time today. Henry Folger traced his line back to Abiah’s father, Peter. Henry once …
Franklin wrote, in sentence 48 of The Way To Wealth: Three Removes is as bad as a Fire, with the word Removes meaning what we now call moves: the process of changing residences. Franklin’s immediate meaning is that changing residences, starting over someplace else, is costly: damages and losses ensue. Fair enough. In my family, …
In my posting of August 23, 2015, I mentioned this quote: “This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins. ” …
