It wasn’t Ben Franklin
Lately, we’ve received several crank e-mails warning Progressive Charlestown to stop writing about town issues, quoting the old proverb, "it's better to be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and confirm it" which was attributed to Ben Franklin by the e-mail writer.
We get e-mails like that from time to time – the author uses a quote or a statistic to try to establish that s/he is a serious person, but then the rest of the message either doesn’t make sense or is border-line obscene. Examples here and here.
They remind me of pornographers after one of the early Supreme Court rulings that held that material is not obscene if it contains some content “of redeeming social value.” So porn makers would throw a couple of Shakespeare or Cicero quotes into the script to have something of “redeeming social value” to use during their obscenity trials.
He said it |
First problem, the quote is inaccurate. The actual quote is “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.”
The second problem is Ben Franklin didn’t say it.
The quote was first widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln, who paraphrased the Book of Proverbs 17:28 - “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”
Mark Twain got a lot of credit for the quote |
After
However, there is one remark that was actually made by Ben Franklin that is very fitting (we might even use this on the first of our line of Progressive Charlestown tee-shirts):
”Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”
As with most good quotes, this one was also picked up, popularized and is now attributed to someone else. In this case, Dale Carnegie, late author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
Another great Benjamin Franklin quote that some of our readers might find inspiring:
Another great Benjamin Franklin quote that some of our readers might find inspiring:
"Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame."