What strikes one about the Autobiography is its complete lack of sentimentality. Franklin had a pronounced character which he pres...ented very acutely, but he did not think of himself as primarily a unique inner self. He was all his many roles, although he put the first above all others, as he wrote in his testament: "I, Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, printer, late Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the court of France, now President of Pennsylvania." There is much pride of achievement in this, but no vanity at all. It is also a wholly social ego.... The distance between Franklin and Hawthorne is immense. Franklin was the sum of his actions, while Hawthorne and we have romantic egos that cannot bear the notion that one's manner of acting one's roles measures true character. For Hawthorne there was a private self that was one's true, supreme, and most honest part. That is why he thought it important to take the "private and domestic view of public men," and why the discrepancy between the two made him so bitter. For Franklin the domestic self was one among several. No remnants of an immortal soul bothered him, and he needed no replacement for it. His private affections were not politically relevant.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Do you not see that so long as society says woman has not brains enough to be a doctor, lawyer or minister, but has plenty to be a... teacher, every man of you who condescends to teach, tacitly admits before all Israel and the sun that he has no more brains than a woman?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In private life he was good-natured, chearful, social; inelegant in his manners, loose in his morals. He had a coarse, strong wit,... which he was too free of for a man in his station, as it is always inconsistent with dignity. He was very able as a minister, but without a certain elevation of mind necessary for great good, or great mischief.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He had a gentleman-like frankness in his behaviour, and as a great point of honour as a minister can have, especially a minister a...t the head of the treasury, where numberless sturdy and insatiable beggars of condition apply, who cannot all be gratified, nor all with safety be refused.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,... I can again thy former light restore Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Chancellor or Foreign Secretary--not the top jobs. Anyway I wouldn't want to be Prim...e Minister. You have to give yourself 100%.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he shou...ld be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democr...atic; for democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger that the British Minister may not understand this political principle as he should.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[T]he minister preached a sermon on Jonah and the whale, at the end of which an old chief arose and declared, "We have heard sever...al of the white people talk and lie; we know they will lie, but this is the biggest lie we ever heard."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »