Barbour, A Concordance to the Sayings in Franklin’s Poor Richard, Published 1974 Goodman, curator of printed materials at the American Philosophical Society Library, Dec. In Poor Richard’s Almanack, we found it as "Half the truth is often a great lie." Kudos to those who accurately quoted Franklin. Our esteemed readers wrote us that Franklin said, "Half a truth is often a great lie." That’s pretty darn close. "Franklin wrote so much and printed so much you can find a lot of things in his writings." "You can say he said anything and he probably did," he said. But in moderation."īut otherwise, Goodman finds that Franklin is generally quoted accurately. "Franklin was an equal opportunity drinker. "I get that a lot, but he never said that," Goodman said. Speaking of wine, Goodman told us that one of the quotes most often misattributed to Franklin is hanging in bars across the country: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." "When the Wine enters, out goes the Truth." "Craft must be at charge for clothes, but Truth can go naked." "The Sting of a Reproach, is the Truth of it." " When Knaves fall out, honest Men get their goods: When Priests dispute, we come at the Truth." In fact, it was not the only time Franklin wrote about truth during the quarter century he published Poor Richard’s Almanack. "Half the Truth is often a great Lie" was, indeed, written by Franklin, listed in the almanac between "The first mistake in publick business, is the going into it," and "The way to see by faith, is to shut the eye of reason: The morning daylight appears plainer when you put out your candle." We pulled up a copy of the 1758 volume of Franklin’s iconic text, and sure enough we found the quote in question. The former text said we could find the quote we were looking for in the July 1758 copy of Poor Richard’s Almanack, a collection of sayings and advice published by Franklin from 1732 to 1758 under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. Barbour, and Ben Franklin Laughing, by Paul Zall. Goodman perused through the pages of two authoritative references on Franklin for us: A Concordance to the Sayings in Franklin’s Poor Richard, by Frances M.
Average American" compared to his aristocratic contemporaries. After hearing the quote, Goodman thought it sounded like something that could have come from Franklin, whom he called "the approachable Founding Father" and "Mr. Goodman, the curator of printed materials at the American Philosophical Society Library. The organization was founded by Franklin, so they should know a thing or two about the man. Our next stop was the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. That’s not definitive proof, but at least we knew it wasn’t pulled out of thin air. So the skeptics in us immediately wondered if Franklin actually ever uttered those words.Ī quick Google search found several variances of the quote, for the most part attributed to Benjamin Franklin. That tweet came courtesy of among others, aptly noting that we gave Obama’s claim a Half True when we first put it to the Truth-O-Meter in 2009.īut before we indulged ourselves in the virtues of Franklin’s philosophies, unfortunately, we’ve come to expect that the Founding Fathers are misquoted or had quotes wrongly attributed to them. " ‘Half a truth is often a great lie.’ - Benjamin Franklin" Some screamed (or at least wrote angry messages in ALL CAPS).īut one tweet at us stood out for how well it captured the essence of the debate surrounding Obama’s statement. Oh, and BTW, he’s 23.When PolitiFact named President Barack Obama’s claim that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it," our fifth Lie of the Year, the Twittersphere rapidly reacted. It has so much air pressure that my oldest son had to have me cock it for him. I want to thank you for the service you performed on my Daisy 25. Just to let you know that I received the Sheridan today and you did an absolutely fantastic job!!!!!! What workmanship and great efforts you went to and I assure you that it is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your prompt answers to our questions. Mahalo again for a great job!!! Rick, Hawaii Thank you so very much for doing a great job in a very timely manner. I just got back in from by backyard range and it shoots great. Bob from OhioĪloha Dennis! Just wanted to send you a note that my pistol arrived in good shape yesterday. You do quality work and I would be more than glad to recommend you. i hope to do more business with you in the future. Thank you for your communication and expertise. They both work exactly as i expected them to do.
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