"Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?"
"During the first visible eclipse Saturn is retrograde: For which reason the crabs will go sidelong and the ropemakers backward. The belly will wag before, and the ---- will sit down first.... When a New Yorker thinks to say THIS he shall say DISS, and the People in New England and Cape May will not be able to say Cow for their Lives, but will be forc'd to say KEOW by a certain involuntary Twist in the Root of their Tongues...."
"Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong and homely."
"Here I sit naked, like some fairy elf; My seat a pumpkin; I grudge no man's pelf, Though I've no bread nor cheese upon my shelf, I'll tell thee gratis, when it safe is To purge, to bleed, or cut thy cattle or--thyself."
"A little house well filled, a little field well till'd and a little wife well will'd are great riches."
"This Year the Stone-blind shall see but very little; the Deaf shall hear but poorly; and the Dumb shan't speak very plain. And it's much, if my Dame Bridget talks at all this Year. Whole Flocks, Herds and Droves of Sheep, Swine and Oxen, Cocks and Hens, Ducks and Drakes, Geese and Ganders shall go to Pot; but the Mortality will not be altogether so great among Cats, Dogs and Horses...."
"I find that this will be a plentiful Year of all manner of good Things, to those who have enough; but the Orange Trees in Greenland will go near to fare the worse for the Cold. As for Oats, they'll be a great Help to Horses...."
"Lend money to an enemy, and thou'lt gain him; to a friend, and thou'lt lose him."
"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards."
"It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright."
For twenty years and more "Poor Richard" kept up this continuous stream of fun, breaking forth afresh every autumn,--sound, wholesome, dealing with the real things and the elemental joys of life, and expressed in that inimitable language of which Franklin was master. In this way was built up the greater part of his wonderful reputation, which in some of its manifestations surprises us so much. Such a reputation is usually of long growth; one or two conspicuous acts will not achieve it. But the man who every year for nearly a generation delighted every human being in the country, from the ploughman and hunter to the royal governors, was laying in store for himself a sure foundation of influence.