tag archive: ben franklin

I’m still reading Franklin’s autobiography and wasn’t surprised to learn of his position on patents. I right away wanted to post the blurb here for the world to see, although a Google search quickly revealed that this is an often-quoted passage:

This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov’r. Thomas was so pleas’d with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin’d it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

– Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

So how will I write? I dunno. I mainly want to provide enjoyment and education for my readers, and I hope I can learn and grow and do a decent job of that. I hope you’ll find something you like. I actually do have beliefs and opinions and with this project maybe I can stop being so intellectually lazy and try to define and sharpen them. In the past I’ve hesitated and procrastinated in my writing because I was afraid it wouldn’t be perfect, which of course obviously it won’t be. But I want to write, so here I go, imperfect scribblings and all. I’ll write as best I can. Tomorrow I may know better and I may cringe at the things I said yesterday, but then I’ll try to remember my Emerson:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.–”Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.”–Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16643/16643-8.txt

Let me be clear that I’m not necessarily implying that I think: (1) I’m great or a great soul, (2) I belong in the company of Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, or that (3) I have a pure and wise spirit.