Interview with Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Glantz
JG: You were a great statesman. What’s
the problem with today’s politics?
To err is human, to repent divine, to
persist
devilish
(Poor
Richard’s
Almanack: 1733-1758. Almanack
shorthand for All Man’s Knack)
is
JG: What do you think about today's
refusal to compromise?
Many a long dispute among divines may
be thus abridged: It is so; It is not so. It is
so; it is not so.
(Poor Richard's Almanack)
JG: In other words?
Franklin: Never confuse motion with
action.
(Unsourced)
JG: Advice for our President?
Franklin: Love your enemies, for they
tell you your faults.
BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: Any other
President?
Here’s a humorous/education interview
that was published in the Philadelphia
Lawyer Magazine on the occasion of
Franklin’s 300th birthday in 2006
thoughts
for
the
Franklin: Be civil to all, sociable to
many, familiar with few, friend to one,
enemy to none
(Unsourced)
JG: What about Vice-Presidents?
Franklin: Necessity never made a good
bargain.
We’re pleased today to have with us a
(Poor Richard's Almanack)
famous inventor, newspaperman, notable
JG: War?
statesman and reportedly an early riser.
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 6,
Franklin: There never was a good war
or a bad peace.
1705 in Boston, Massachusetts. He escaped
(Letter to Josiah JGuincy (1783-09-11))
to Philadelphia where he rose from a man
JG: What is your opinion of the Senate?
who could afford 3 pennies worth of bread
heirs and the government fight over his
Franklin: Of learned Fools, I have seen
ten times ten, Of unlearned wise men I
have seen 100
will. Along the way he used his great array
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
of wisdom to dupe money and arms from the
JG: And the House of Representatives?
French, probably the key ingredient to the
passed away on 4/17/1790 in Philadelphia,
Franklin:
To
serve
the
Public
Faithfully, and at the same time please
it entirely, is impractical.
Pennsylvania. Please welcome the true
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
Renaissance Man
JG: How to cope with the finance
to someone wealthy enough to have his
success of the American Revolution. He
Benjamin Franklin by Tim Ogline
Franklin: Human felicity is produc'd
not so much by great pieces of good
1
Interview with Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Glantz
fortune that seldom happen, as by
little advantages that occur every
day.
(Autobiography)
JG: Regulating Wall Street?
Franklin:
They that won't
counselled, can't be helped.
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: What about talk radio?
Franklin: He that speaks much is
much mistaken
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
be
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: Corporate Mergers?
Franklin: Wedlock, as old men note,
hath likened been, Unto a public
crowd or common rout;
Where those that are without would
fain get in. And those that are within,
would fain get out.
Grief often treads upon the heels of
pleasure, Marry’d in haste, we often
repent at leisure;
Some by experience find these words
misplaced. Marry’d at leisure, they
repent in haste.
JG: The demise of the hand-held
newspaper?
The learned fool writes his
nonsense in better language than
the unlearned, but still ‘tis
no ns en s e (Th e To as tmas t e r’s
Treasure Chest)
JG: Nonfiction?
Franklin: Historians relate, not so
much what is done, as what they
would have believed.
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: Readers?
Franklin: Reading makes a man full,
m e d i ta t i o n a pro f o u n d m a n ,
discourse a clear man.
(Poor Richard’s Almanack, Wedlock)
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: Let’s try a few character traits.
Indulgence?
Franklin: Eat not dullness. Drink
not to temptation.
JG: Do you have any advice for us
mortals?
Franklin: If you would not be
forgotten as soon as you are dead
and rotten Either write things
worth Reading or do things worth
writing about.
(Franklin’s 13
Autobiography)
Virtues
from
his
JG: The latest I-phone?
Franklin: Many a man thinks he is
buying pleasure, when he is really
selling himself to it.
(Unsourced)
JG: What do you think of today’s
youth?
Franklin: They, who have nothing to
trouble them, will be troubled at
nothing.
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: We couldn’t leave with asking a
few questions about your specialty communications? Would you care to
comment on the ability to read
anything and everything on the
Internet?
Franklin: He that would live in peace
and at ease, must not speak all he
knows nor judge all he sees.
2
(Poor Richard’s Almanack)
JG: And what you wanted your
epitaph to say?
Franklin: THE Body of Benjamin
Franklin, Printer
(Like the cover of an old book; Its
contents torn out
And stript of its lettering and
gilding); Lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be lost; For it
will (as he believed) appear once
more
In a new and more elegant edition;
Revised and corrected; by The
Author.
(Poor Richard’s Almanack – Epitaph
in Bookish Style)