Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c1062IR // #c1062Synthesis

"I should have called my book The Art of Virtue, because it would have shown the means and manner of obtaining virtue, which would have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct and indicate the means"

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

[Use when]

You are about to tell someone what to be without telling them how.

[Why it matters]

He planned a book that taught method rather than urging goodness, and compared exhortation to telling the hungry to be fed. He never wrote it. The memoir's chapter on the virtue table is the closest he came.

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