Leadership Quote by Benjamin Franklin

Franklin is selling caution as a civic virtue, not a timid personality trait. "Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing" reads like homespun advice, but it’s calibrated for a world where relationships functioned as credit lines. In an 18th-century Atlantic economy built on reputation, a "friend" wasn’t just a brunch companion; it was a potential guarantor, a political ally, a business partner, a witness to your character. Choose badly and you don’t just get your feelings hurt, you get ruined.

The sentence is engineered for practical impact. The parallel structure ("slow... slower") makes loyalty feel like a ratchet: once you click into commitment, backing out should take even more friction. Franklin’s subtext is about trust as infrastructure. Societies don’t run on abstract ideals; they run on predictable people. A stable friend network becomes a stable public sphere, and instability looks less like self-actualization than unreliability.

There’s also a quiet warning to the ambitious. Franklin moved through salons, assemblies, print shops, and diplomatic courts; he knew how quickly social circles can turn into factions. The line discourages the opportunist’s habit of trading relationships for advantage, because constant switching signals that you are the common denominator in every conflict.

It’s not sentimental loyalty for loyalty’s sake. It’s an argument that friendship, handled like a serious contract, produces the kind of long-term trust a republic depends on. In Franklin’s world, being "slow" isn’t passive; it’s strategic restraint dressed up as plainspoken wisdom.