Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c1047IR // #c1047Synthesis

"I consider'd it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books; I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurr'd between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences" "The bringing all these scatter'd councils thus into a focus enabled them to make greater impression."

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

[Use when]

Your message has no audience of its own and there is a channel people already read.

[Why it matters]

He put his message in the one book people already bought, then gathered the proverbs into a single speech, The Way to Wealth (in the Appendix). The sales and reprint figures are his.

More from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

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