On the record
This kind of after-wisdom is indeed so common with us, as to occasion the vulgar, though very insignificant saying, When the steed is stolen, you shut the stable door.
Source
gutenberg.orgBenjamin Franklin: “This kind of after-wisdom is indeed so common with us, as to occasion the vulgar, though very insignificant saying, When…”
Editor's note · Context
Franklin uses a proverb to express the common human tendency to take action only after a problem has occurred.
Share
More from Benjamin Franklin
Our legal method of compulsion is by imprisonment: the Indians cannot and will not imprison one another; and if we attempt to imprison them, I apprehend it would be generally disliked by the nations, and occasion breaches.
The rest depends on a man's own industry and virtue.
But when Britain values herself as affording us protection, we desire it may be considered, that we have followed her in all her wars, and joined with her at our own expence against all she thought fit to quarrel with.
Taxes paid in Britain by the landholder or artificer must enter into and increase the price of the produce of land and manufactures made of it; and great part of this is paid by consumers in the colonies, who thereby pay a considerable…
Other voices in this conversation
