Benjamin Franklin — "What maintains one vice would bring up two children."
What maintains one vice would bring up two children.
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More from Benjamin Franklin
"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
"He that by the Plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive."
"There never was a good war or a bad peace."
"He that is rich, has many friends."
"What is wit, or wealth, or form, or learning, when compared with virtue?"
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
The money wasted feeding a single bad habit—drinking, gambling, idleness—could instead raise two children to adulthood. It's a stark arithmetic of moral priority: vices are expensive luxuries that drain resources families desperately need. The point isn't just financial; it's that every indulgence has a real human cost measured in opportunity, in mouths unfed, in futures not built.
Relevance to Benjamin Franklin
Franklin rose from poverty as the fifteenth of seventeen children, understanding firsthand how scarce family resources were. His Poor Richard's Almanack was built on practical thrift philosophy. As a printer, entrepreneur, and self-made man, he tracked money carefully and preached that small daily waste compounds into large losses—this quote embodies his core belief that discipline and frugality are the foundation of prosperity and civic virtue.
The era
Colonial America had no social safety nets, no welfare systems, no public hospitals. Families survived on narrow margins; a father's drinking could mean children starving. Vice—especially tavern culture and gambling—was a recognized social problem draining colonial households. Franklin's era also saw rising Enlightenment emphasis on rational self-improvement, making this arithmetic of moral choice resonant: reason demanded you choose children over indulgence.
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