Benjamin Franklin — "He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner."
He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.
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More from Benjamin Franklin
"A good example is the best sermon."
"There never was a good war or a bad peace."
"Necessity never made a good bargain."
"Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack'd, and never well mended."
"A penny saved is a penny got."
About Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Passive reliance on luck guarantees nothing. If you sit waiting for good fortune to deliver success, you risk real deprivation—literally going hungry. Security comes only from taking initiative, creating your own opportunities, and working steadily toward your goals. Hoping circumstances will improve on their own is a fool's strategy. Action and self-reliance are the only dependable foundations for a stable, prosperous life.
Relevance to Benjamin Franklin
Franklin embodied this personally. Born the 15th of 17 children to a Boston candlemaker, he had no fortune to wait on. He fled his brother's printing apprenticeship at 17 with almost nothing and built a Philadelphia publishing empire through relentless effort. His Poor Richard's Almanack—source of this proverb—was itself a self-made commercial product. He retired financially independent at 42 through industry alone, not luck or inherited patronage.
The era
Colonial America had no safety nets—no pensions, welfare, or social insurance of any kind. Most colonists lived as farmers or tradesmen with razor-thin margins where passivity meant genuine destitution. The Protestant work ethic dominated culture, equating industry with virtue and idleness with moral failure. Franklin published this during the 1730s–1750s, when a rising merchant class was demonstrating that self-made prosperity was achievable through diligence rather than birthright or chance.
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