Quotes About Franklin

Until then, electricity had been thought to involve two types of fluids, called vitreous and resinous, that could be created independently. Franklin's discovery that the generation of a positive charge was accompanied by the generation of an equal negative charge became known as the conservation of charge and the single-fluid theory of electricity.

Harvard professor I. Bernard Cohen has pronounced, "Franklin's law of conservation of charge must be considered to be of the same fundamental importance to physical science as Newton's law of conservation of momentum.

In his competition with Bradford, Franklin had one big disadvantage. Bradford was the postmaster of Philadelphia, and he used that position to deny Franklin the right, at least officially, to send his Gazette through the mail. Their ensuing struggle over the issue of open carriage was an early example of the tension that often still exists between those who create content and those who control distribution systems.

Franklin had been serving his country, as it headed toward revolution, in roles befitting a man of his age: diplomat, elder statesman, sage, and dozing delegate.

Franklin's birthplace on Milk Street in Boston, across from the Old South Church.

Franklin's scientific achievements placed him in the pantheon with Newton. Franklin's experiments, he wrote in 1941, "afforded a basis for the explanation for all the known phenomena of electricity."16 Franklin

When the fermentation is over and the troubling parts subsided, the wine will be fine and good, and cheer the hearts of those that drink it."41 Franklin was wrong, sadly wrong, about the French Revolution, though he would not live long enough to learn it. Le Veillard would soon lose his life to the guillotine. So would Lavoisier the chemist, who had worked with him on the Mesmer investigation. Condorcet, the economist who had accompanied

Initiates were required to stand, lay their hand on their breast, and answer properly four questions: Do you have disrespect for any current member? Do you love mankind in general regardless of religion or profession? Do you feel people should ever be punished because of their opinions or mode of worship? Do you love and pursue truth for its own sake? Franklin

Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint," he wrote. "But as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a lighthouse." Franklin always took pride in his instinct for practical solutions, but that too would fail him in England.2 Franklin's return to London at age 51 came almost thirt

Louis XVI made the Franco-American treaties official by receiving the three commissioners at Versailles on March 20. Crowds gathered at the palace gates to catch a glimpse of the famous American, and they shouted "Vive Franklin" as his coach passed through the gold-crested gates.

When Franklin was ushered into the king's bedchamber at noon, after the official levee, Louis XVI was in a posture of prayer.

The metaphor, though obvious, is too good to resist: Franklin, by nature, liked to find ingenious ways to calm turbulent waters. But during his time as a diplomat in England, this instinct would fail him.

As Benjamin Franklin put it, "No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies."48

I think one of the lessons of the Depression - and this is something that Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated - was that when orthodoxy fails, then you need to try new things. And he was very willing to try unorthodox approaches when the orthodox approach had shown that it was not adequate.

Benjamin Franklin performed a beautiful experiment using surfactants: on a pond at Clapham Common, he poured a small amount of oleic acid, a natural surfactant which tends to form a dense film at the water-air interface.

Blind Pig Blues

At age forty-two, Ben Franklin retired from his profession as newspaper and magazine publisher to the American colonies to pursue other interests. His aim now was to satisfy his insatiable scientific curiosity. What caused a high-pitched violin to break a glass? Why does electricity go through water but not wood? Such questions then fell under the heading of natural philosophy, what we today call physics. (The term "scientist" was not coined until 1833.)

He was a little model, was Benjamin. Doctor Franklin. Snuff-colored little man! Immortal soul and all!

All free peoples are deeply impressed by the courage and steadfastness of the Greek nation.

Jackson, however, persevered. He joined the Franklin Debating Society, an institution that had been in existence over fifty years, and had enrolled in its membership some of the ablest men in Virginia.

Franklin Roosevelt was very concerned about environmental issues.

The voice of God, if you must know, is Aretha Franklin's.

Eleanor and Franklin had had six children together, but apparently Eleanor had once described sex with her husband as "an ordeal to be borne".

Franklin had been born on January 17, 1706. In inimitable Philadelphia fashion, the city launched its celebration on April 17, the anniversary of his death.