I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.
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"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power."
"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is only buying himself trouble."
"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."
"God heals, and the doctor takes the fees."
"After Supper walk a Mile, after Dinner sleep a while."
Polymath Founding Father, diplomat, and Poor Richard's Almanack author who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Closely associated with John Adams (fellow Founder, Massachusetts statesman) and Thomas Jefferson (fellow Declaration drafter). For an intellectual contrast, see Thomas Hutchinson, last royal governor of colonial Massachusetts — Franklin leaked Hutchinson's loyalist correspondence to Boston in 1772 to inflame revolutionary sentiment — Hutchinson represented the colonial-aristocrat crown-loyalty that Franklin's revolution was organized to dismantle.
From 'The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin', a profound reflection on life, regret, and the desire for self-improvement.
Date: c. 1771-1790
PhilosophicalFound in 1 providers: gemini
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Franklin says he would willingly relive his entire life from the very start — not because it was perfect, but because it was worth repeating. His only condition: the chance to fix his mistakes, the way a writer revises a book for its second printing. It's a statement of deep life satisfaction combined with honest self-awareness — he valued his existence enough to want it again, but wasn't blind to his own faults.
The printing metaphor was Franklin's native language — he worked in print shops from age 12, published Poor Richard's Almanack for 26 years, and wrote his autobiography to pass down life lessons. His famous 13 Virtues project, where he tracked moral failures in a notebook, showed lifelong commitment to self-correction. A man who literally revised texts for a living understood 'correcting faults' concretely. The quote captures his signature pragmatic optimism: grateful for what was, honest about what could have been better.
The Enlightenment championed reason, human perfectibility, and self-improvement — ideas Franklin personified. In an era of high mortality and religious doctrine framing life as a single unrepeatable trial before divine judgment, his secular, contented framing was quietly radical. Print culture was expanding rapidly; revised editions signaled refinement, not shame. Franklin began his autobiography in 1771 as the American republic was being constructed — a society itself attempting to correct the faults of the old monarchical first edition.
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