Thursday, July 03, 2014

The Measure of a Person

Benjamin Franklin believed that the measure of a person's greatness was the person's goodness. He did not believe one could exist without the other. In 1729, in the "American Weekly Mercury," Franklin wrote:
If we were as industrious to become good as to make ourselves great, we should become really great by being good, and the number of valuable people would be much increased.
But it is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness; and I pronounce it as certain, that there was never yet a truly great person who was not at the same time truly virtuous.

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