Poor Richard's Alamanac

Author:
Benjamin Franklin

Book notes and highlights from Ben Franklin's annual publication from the 1700's.

Rating:
Useful
Read on Amazon

Summary

Poor Richards Almanac was a yearly publication of aphorisms by Ben Franklin, writing under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, in the mid 1700's. (Amazon link)

It's stood the test of time as a book on how to live a successful life. Like most books on this topic, the principles are rooted in teachings from thousands of years ago.

What's novel about Franklin's preaching approach is how he packages the messages into short sentences and phrases like "Reading makes a full man, Meditation a profound man, Discourse a clear man." [1]

The following are my personal highlights from the book, with my favorite highlights in bold.

Highlights

On Being Useful, Industry, Sloth

On Happiness

On Governance

On Pride

On Anger / Public Communication

On Gluttony, Indulgence, Health, Discipline

On Financial Discipline, Business

On Marriage, Friendships, Relationships, Family, Enemies

On Intelligence

On The Nature of People

Footnotes

[1] Naval Ravikant is similar to Ben Franklin in that he's well known for his aphorisms. There's a lot of overlap in the principles from Poor Richard's Almanack in Naval's new book, "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant", written by Eric Jorgenson. The book is great. I highly recommend it.

[2] This echos Dale Carnegie's Principle 1 from How to Win Friends and Influence People when he says  "Don't Criticize, Condemn, or Complain."

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