Benjamin Franklin: Biographical Overview and Bibliography

Voorkant
Nova Publishers, 2002 - 240 pagina's
Benjamin Franklin is generally considered one of America's most versatile and talented statesmen, scientists, and philosophers. His achievements include publisher of Poor Richard's Almanac and many articles on political, economic, religious, philosophical and scientific subjects. He was the inventor of bifocals, the Franklin stove, lightening rod, he was one of the signers of the 'Declaration of Independence', and the founder of, what is now the University of Pennsylvania. This book presents a detailed and riveting review of Franklin's life based on excerpts from the renowned 1899 book on Franklin by Sydney George Fisher. This overview is augmented by a substantial selective bibliography, which features access through title, subject and author indexes.

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Pagina 13 - I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected...
Pagina 16 - For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer with a pewter spoon.
Pagina 27 - Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite ; which, being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string, will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being of silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder-gust without tearing.
Pagina 9 - But what is your practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends, with whom you have dined, would be the choice of men of sense ; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged for two or three hours! This is your perpetual recreation, which is the least eligible of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions.
Pagina 9 - GOUT. The world may think as it pleases; it is always very complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends ; but I very well know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man, who takes a reasonable degree of exercise, would be too much for another, who never takes any.
Pagina 39 - I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly; but another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering: 'You know that the soul is immortal; why then should you be such a niggard of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?
Pagina 33 - In the year of CHRIST MDCCLV., George the Second happily reigning (for he sought the happiness of his people), Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were public-spirited), this building, by the bounty of the government, and of many private persons, was piously founded for the relief of the sick and miserable. May the GOD OF MERCIES bless the undertaking.
Pagina 27 - As soon as any of the thunder-clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle.
Pagina 14 - I had gone on making verses ; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse ; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.
Pagina 20 - By his own calculation he will survive till the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past ; but at length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment. Which of us is most exact, a little time will now determine.

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