"Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion"
About this Quote
Franklin turns wealth into a mood, not a number, and in doing so quietly rewires the social hierarchy. "Who is rich?" sounds like a census question, the kind a rising commercial society would answer with ledgers and land deeds. His reply refuses that math. Richness, he argues, belongs to the person who can live inside their "portion" without resentment. The punch isn t pious resignation; it s a shrewd psychological definition that undercuts the status chase by relocating prosperity from the marketplace to the mind.
The subtext is classic Franklin: moral instruction disguised as practical advice. In a world of colonial ambition, tightening credit, and visible inequality, he offers a portable form of security. If you can rejoice in what you have, no boom or bust can fully bankrupt you. That inward turn also functions as social critique. It hints that a culture organized around acquisition manufactures dissatisfaction on purpose: if you can be content, you become harder to sell to, harder to manipulate, harder to govern through envy.
Calling it a "portion" matters. The word has a Puritan tang of providence and limits, implying both allotment and responsibility. Franklin, the politician and civic engineer, isn t urging people to stop working; he s warning against the emotional spirals that make citizens easy prey for demagogues and consumers for snake-oil schemes. Contentment becomes a form of independence, the most Franklin-esque kind of richness: not showy, not fragile, and quietly radical in a society learning to measure human worth in cash.
The subtext is classic Franklin: moral instruction disguised as practical advice. In a world of colonial ambition, tightening credit, and visible inequality, he offers a portable form of security. If you can rejoice in what you have, no boom or bust can fully bankrupt you. That inward turn also functions as social critique. It hints that a culture organized around acquisition manufactures dissatisfaction on purpose: if you can be content, you become harder to sell to, harder to manipulate, harder to govern through envy.
Calling it a "portion" matters. The word has a Puritan tang of providence and limits, implying both allotment and responsibility. Franklin, the politician and civic engineer, isn t urging people to stop working; he s warning against the emotional spirals that make citizens easy prey for demagogues and consumers for snake-oil schemes. Contentment becomes a form of independence, the most Franklin-esque kind of richness: not showy, not fragile, and quietly radical in a society learning to measure human worth in cash.
Quote Details
| Topic | Contentment |
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