Content
The Almanack contained the calendar, weather, poems, sayings and astronomical and astrological information that a typical almanac of the period would contain. Franklin also included the occasional mathematical exercise, and the Almanack from 1750 features an early example of demographics. It is chiefly remembered, however, for being a repository of Franklin's aphorisms and proverbs, many of which live on in American English. These maxims typically counsel thrift and courtesy, with a dash of cynicism.
In the spaces that occurred between noted calendar days, Franklin included proverbial sentences about industry and frugality. Several of these sayings were borrowed from an earlier writer, Lord Halifax, many of whose aphorisms sprang from, ".... basic skepticism directed against the motives of men, manners, and the age." In 1757, Franklin made a selection of these and prefixed them to the almanac as the address of an old man to the people attending an auction. This was later published as The Way to Wealth, and was popular in both America and England.
Read more about this topic: Poor Richard's Almanack
Famous quotes containing the word content:
“People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“He that has and a little tiny wit—
With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain—
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
Though the rain it raineth every day.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)