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2 quotes by Benjamin Franklin · clear filters
God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says.
Attribution contested
Quoted constantly as scripture. It is nowhere in the Bible, which says something close to the opposite in several places. Franklin printed it in Poor Richard's Almanack and gathered it here in 1758, but he did not coin it either: he presents it as an existing proverb, and versions of it appear in Algernon Sidney's Discourses in 1698 and, earlier still, in Aesop.
Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, as Poor Richard says.
Attribution contested
Franklin made the proverb famous and is now given it outright, but he did not write it. It is recorded in English more than a century before he was born, in the Book of St Albans in 1496 and in John Clarke's proverb collection of 1639. Franklin's own contribution is the half nobody quotes: drive thy business, let not that drive thee.