The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, LL.D, F.R.S., &c. Minister Plenipontentiary from the United States of America at the Court of France, and for the Treaty of Peace and Independence with Great Britain, &c. &c: Comprising a Series of Letters on Miscellaneous, Literary, and Political Subjects Written Between the Years 1753 and 1790, Illustrating the Memoirs of His Public and Private Life, and Developing the Secret History of His Political Transactions and Negociations, Band 1

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Henry Colburn, 1817

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Seite 139 - I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character : he does not get his living honestly...
Seite 149 - When I was a boy I met with a book entitled "Essays to Do Good," which I think was written by your father.* It had been so little regarded by a former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out ; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life, for I have always set a greater value...
Seite 278 - As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see...
Seite 322 - What the event will be, God only knows. But some punishment seems preparing for a people, who are ungratefully abusing the best constitution, and the best King, any nation was ever blessed with, intent on nothing but luxury, licentiousness, power, places, pensions, and plunder...
Seite 126 - At length we are in peace, God be praised, and long, very long, may it continue! All wars are follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their differences by arbitration ? Were they to do it, even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other.
Seite 52 - The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport.
Seite 150 - I did not understand him till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man who never missed any occasion of giving instruction ; and upon this he said to me : "You are young, and have the world before you : stoop as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps.
Seite 130 - America, too, is extremely sensible of his benevolence and great beneficence towards her, and will ever revere his memory. These volumes are a proof of what I have sometimes had occasion to say, in encouraging people to undertake difficult public services, that it is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it.
Seite 280 - I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion that, though your...
Seite 266 - Our new Constitution is now established, and has an. appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

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