Thomas Brooks

“When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him.”
― Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

“Franklin ended his “Apology for Printers” with a fable about a father and son traveling with a donkey. When the father rode and made his son walk, they were criticized by those they met; likewise, they were criticized when the son rode and made the father walk, or when they both rode the donkey, or when neither did. So finally, they decided to throw the donkey off a bridge. The moral, according to Franklin, was that it is foolish to try to avoid all criticism. Despite his “despair of pleasing everybody,” Franklin concluded, “I shall not burn my press or melt my letters.”16”
― Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

“Socrates’ method of building an argument through gentle queries, he “dropped my abrupt contradiction” style of argument and “put on the humbler enquirer” of the Socratic method. By asking what seemed to be innocent questions, Franklin would draw people into making concessions that would gradually prove whatever point he was trying to assert.”
― Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

“The riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labor its inhabitants are able to purchase, and not by the quantity of silver and gold they possess.” The”
― Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life