"If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles"
About this Quote
Franklin’s line lands like a homespun warning and a quiet flex: the American myth of wanting-more gets punctured by the guy who helped invent it. The brilliance is in the mathy neatness. “Half” sounds modest, even virtuous, until Franklin flips it into “double,” a rhetorical trapdoor that turns desire into liability. He’s not moralizing against ambition so much as diagnosing its mechanics: every fulfilled wish breeds new obligations, new dependencies, and new anxieties about losing what you’ve gained.
The subtext is political as much as personal. Franklin lived inside a culture of ascent - commerce swelling in the colonies, reputations made in print, fortunes made in trade - where wishes weren’t daydreams but projects. In that world, getting what you want doesn’t end the story; it starts paperwork. A bigger house needs locks. A higher office needs alliances. A stronger nation needs taxes, armies, and compromises that corrode purity. Wishes compound into systems, and systems generate friction.
He also smuggles in a very Franklinian ethic: self-command beats self-indulgence. The line flatters the reader into prudence. You’re not being timid if you resist the wish-list; you’re being strategically sane. It’s an argument for restraint dressed up as common sense, the kind that plays well in a republic trying to keep private appetites from becoming public crises.
The subtext is political as much as personal. Franklin lived inside a culture of ascent - commerce swelling in the colonies, reputations made in print, fortunes made in trade - where wishes weren’t daydreams but projects. In that world, getting what you want doesn’t end the story; it starts paperwork. A bigger house needs locks. A higher office needs alliances. A stronger nation needs taxes, armies, and compromises that corrode purity. Wishes compound into systems, and systems generate friction.
He also smuggles in a very Franklinian ethic: self-command beats self-indulgence. The line flatters the reader into prudence. You’re not being timid if you resist the wish-list; you’re being strategically sane. It’s an argument for restraint dressed up as common sense, the kind that plays well in a republic trying to keep private appetites from becoming public crises.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Benjamin Franklin — aphorism commonly attributed to him; referenced on his Wikiquote entry. |
More Quotes by Benjamin
Add to List
