Leadership Quote by Benjamin Franklin

Franklin doesn’t denounce war with trumpet-blast moralism; he dismantles it with the cool efficiency of a ledger. Calling wars “follies” is a deliberate demotion. Not crimes, not sins, not epic struggles for honor - just idiotic decisions made by people who should know better. The word lands like an insult aimed upward, at kings, ministers, and the self-important men who treat conflict as statecraft. It’s contempt disguised as common sense.

Then he tightens the screws: “very expensive and very mischievous.” Franklin’s genius is pairing the language of accounting with the language of harm. “Expensive” speaks to taxpayers, trade, debt, and the slow bleed of public resources into cannons and uniforms. “Mischievous” is even sharper: it sounds almost playful, but it points to the chaos war unleashes - corruption, opportunism, the strengthening of executive power, and the way violence keeps generating reasons for more violence. The understatement is the point. Franklin refuses the romance of war by describing it the way you’d describe a disastrous business venture or a reckless prank with bodies attached.

Context matters: Franklin lived through imperial wars, colonial skirmishes, and the revolution that made him a politician in the first place. He wasn’t naive about force; he was allergic to its mythology. The line reads like a warning from a pragmatist who knows how easily leaders sell “necessity” when what they really mean is pride, profit, or distraction.