Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 2

Front Cover
Mason Brothers, 1864

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 654 - But nature makes that mean; so over that art, Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend nature — change it rather; but The art itself is nature.
Page 574 - I have lived, Sir, a long time ; and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that GOD governs in the affairs of men. And, if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid ? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that, 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Page 68 - Straits — while we are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold — that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry.
Page 413 - The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter.
Page 34 - We shall be forced ultimately to retract ; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent oppressive acts ; they must be repealed — you will repeal them ; I pledge myself for it, that you will in the end repeal them ; I stake my reputation on it — I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed.
Page 604 - Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," etc., issued the following letter: — "AN ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. " From the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes unla-wfully held in Bondage.
Page 500 - The navigation of the river Mississippi from its source to the ocean, shall forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States.
Page 581 - Whilst the last members were signing, Dr. FRANKLIN, looking towards the president's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish, in their art, a rising from a setting sun. "I have," said he, "often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the president, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting...
Page 574 - I also believe, that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel : we shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages.
Page 68 - Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south.

Bibliographic information