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Management Mantras

putting thinking into writing





Benjamin Franklin List of Virtues

TEMPERANCE Eat not dullness. Drink not to elevation.

SILENCE Speak not but what may benefit others. Or yourself; Avoid
trifling conversation.

ORDER Let all your things have their places;Let each part of your
business have its time.

RESOLUTION Resolve to perform what you ought; Perform without fail what
you resolve.

FRUGALITY Make no Expence. But to do good to others or yourself; that
is, waste nothing.

INDUSTRY Lose no time; Be always employed in somethinguseful; Cut off
all unnecessary actions.

SINCERITY Use no hurtful Deceit; Think innocently and justly, and, if
you speak, speak accordingly.

JUSTICE Wrong non by doing injuries; or omitting the benefits that are
your duty.

MODERATION Avoid extremes; Forbear resenting injuries so much as you
think they deserve.

CLEANLINESS Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

TRANQUILITY Be not disturbed at triffles, or at accidents common or
unavoidable.

CHASTITY Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, Never to
dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or
reputation.

HUMILITY Imitate Jesus and Socrates.



Benjamin Franklin's Quotes

"The things which hurt, instruct."
"It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satify all that will
follow it." (speaking on self discipline)
"Employ thy time well if thou means to gain leisure."

Printer First and Last

Benjamin Franklin personifies the spirit and inventiveness of the modern
world. His accomplishments read like an almanac of greatness:

Inventor; poet; philosopher; pamphleteer.
Distinguished member of three national academies of science.
America's first Postmaster general.
Founder of Philadelphia's first police force, lending library, and the
academy which would become the University of Pennsylvania.
Founder of the first fire insurance company.
Delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
Drafter of the Declaration of Independence.
One of America's most effective statesman and ambassadors.

But for all his achievements, and for all his wealth, the epitaph Franklin
wrote for himself simply reads "Here lies the body of Ben Franklin,
printer."

In honoring his humble roots as printer's apprentice, Benjamin Franklin
reveals a lot about what made him great. It was the world of printing that
first exposed Franklin to new books, writers, and ideas. Without this
foundation, the rest of his accomplishment would not have been possible.

Source: Great Life Network

Food For Thought

Young Ben Franklin would sacrifice just about anything for an opportunity
to learn.

Early on, he was so attracted to learning and teachings that his father
believed him headed for the ministry. But since his family had no money
for a college education, he ended his schooling at ten years old,
apprenticing with his father as a candle maker, then to his brother James
as a printer.

Finding himself with little spare money for books or spare time for study,
Franklin devised a plan. In his own words...

"I happened to meet with a book recommending a vegetable diet. I
determined to [adopt] it and then proposed to my brother that if he would
give me the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He agreed,
and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an
additional fund for buying books.

"But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the
Printing House to their meals, I remained there alone, and [eating] my
light [meal] (which often was no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread,
a handful of raisins or a tart...and a glass of water) had the rest of the
time until their return, for study, in which I made the greater progress
from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually
attend temperance in eating and drinking."1

Benjamin Franklin understood the value of reading and learning early on.
His passion for learning laid the foundation for his successful career as
inventor, poet, philosopher and statesman.

Source: Great Life Network.

Lived Usefully

Ben Franklin once wrote, "I would rather have it said 'he lived usefully'
than 'he died rich.'" More than
just words, it was the way Franklin lived his life.

According to Dr. John C. Van Horne, Library Company of Philadelphia:
"Franklin's philanthropy was what I call
of a collective nature. His sense of benevolence was aiding his fellow
human beings and doing good to society. In fact, in one sense, Franklin's
philanthropy, his sense of benevolence, was his religion. Doing good to
mankind was, in his understanding, divine."

Even his position as a printer fit this philosophical bent. He did not
hoard his ideas, but shared them, and
everyone benefited. He had an "abundance mentality."

Instead of seeing the world in terms of how much money he could make,
Franklin saw the world in terms of how many people he could help. To
Benjamin Franklin, being useful was its own reward.


Everyone starts from scratch, but not everyone keeps on scratching.


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