Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c1043IR // #c1043Synthesis

"I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis'd it on such occasions"

— In our words · Source: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin Franklin)

[Use when]

Your project needs other people's money or help and your name on it is causing resistance.

[Why it matters]

Asking neighbors to fund his library raised the suspicion that he wanted to rise above them. Hiding his authorship removed the objection. He used the same cover for the academy pamphlet, published as the work of "publick-spirited gentlemen."

More from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

#c1038"I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking…You want to learn a craft from a master's work and reading it again isn't teaching you anything. #c1039"I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter."…Your questions keep winning arguments and people have started refusing to answer them. #c1040"I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own." "in answering I…You are right on the substance and still losing the room.