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Sunday 18 October
1 · The text
Franklin's thirteen virtues
His working list — temperance to humility — each with the one-line rule he held himself to.
2 min · Benjamin Franklin · Autobiography · 1791 · public domain
In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning.
These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
1. Temperance.
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence.
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order.
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution.
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality.
Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i. e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY.
Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity.
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice.
Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation.
Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness.
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquillity.
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity.
Rarely use venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.
13. Humility.
Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang'd them with that view, as they stand above.
2 · One idea · Reasoning
Inversion
Charlie Munger was asked to give graduates advice, and he told them how to be miserable instead.
At the Harvard School graduation on 13 June 1986 he skipped the usual talk of success and listed sure ways to wreck a life, starting with Johnny Carson's: envy, resentment and mind-altering chemicals.
He credited the method to the mathematician Carl Jacobi, who kept repeating one phrase: invert, always invert. Picture planning a wedding by first writing every way it could go wrong. That list is easier to write than the dream, and each line tells you what to guard.
Some problems only open when you come at them from the other side.
In one line. Inversion is solving a problem from the opposite end — asking how to fail, then avoiding that. Instead of “how do I succeed?”, you ask “what would guarantee disaster?” and systematically eliminate it.
Worked example
Asked how to have a great career, invert it: how would you ruin one? Unreliability, never learning, bad relationships, wrecked health. Avoiding those guarantees more than any positive plan. It was Charlie Munger’s signature move: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
How to use it, and where it fails3 · One number
Adults who can read and write, world
190021%
202488%
4.1 times the 1900 level.
Everything on this site assumes a reader; for most people who ever lived, that was not a safe assumption.
Source: Our World in Data, world estimates, read 2026-09-24.