Poor Richard’s Almanac

Words of wisdom. May 9, 2013

Apparently, our hero and blog mentor, the great Benjamin Franklin, had a 19th-century imitator. But this man, a British Baptist minister, didn’t simply crib Ben’s sayings, as our friend Ben discovered this morning while reading a piece from The Week called “15 less-than-inspirational quotes from a book of moral advice” (read them all on TheWeek.com).

I was intrigued by the title of the article and assumed it would be poking fun at some outdated moralist’s misguided ideas. Instead, the Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon had a wealth of commonsense wisdom of his own to impart, in Dr. Franklin’s famous homespun style. Here are my favorites:

“Eggs are aggs, but some are rotten; and so hopes are hopes, but many of them are delusions.”

“Expect to get half of what you earn, a quarter of what is your due, and none of what you have lent, and you will be near the mark.”

“Make as few changes as you can; trees often transplanted bear little fruit.”

“It is far better to work with an old-fashioned spade that suits your hand than with a new-fangled invention that you don’t understand.” [Yeah! Go, Luddites, go!!!]

“It is true you must bake with the flour you have, but if the sack is empty it might be just as well not to set up for a baker.”

“Every minnow wants to be a whale, but it is prudent to be a little fish while you have but little water.”

Wow. I think Ben Franklin would agree.