Benjamin Franklin Research Paper

Words: 538
Pages: 3

Benjamin Franklin was one of America’s founding father and has always been thought of as the brilliant inventor. Countless people throughout history has held him in an incredibly high pedestal for his success and brilliance. However Benjamin Franklin was human and did have failures. In the autobiography he talks about his goal to become morally perfect. This was an empty goal for him to attempt because no one is perfect in any sense of the word. Even if he made a valiant attempt to complete this goal, he would see later on that one of his biggest goals would not be accomplished and would end in failure.
Benjamin Franklin’s goal was to reach moral perfection by mastering thirteen virtues. He believed that by completing these virtues, his skill,
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It is safe to say that Benjamin Franklin was able to master it fairly easy, after a few days. The next virtue on his list was Silence the virtue to speak only when needed and not for useless or rude remarks, it also extends to mean to be silent when another is speaking about something significant. This virtue caused Benjamin Franklin some more difficulty, but he was able to master it because of his motivation to better himself and learn. By staying silent, he believed he could better improve himself by becoming kinder and smarter by listening when people speak. Finally the third virtue, Order, was the virtue that gave Benjamin Franklin the most inconvenience. The virtue of organization and keeping everything in place was extremely difficult for Benjamin Franklin. His amazing memory was extremely helpful and useful to him. And as time went on he was able to improve himself morally, however he had various setbacks and failures when attempting to master this virtue. Eventually, as he became older his memory began to worsen until he was no longer able to depend on it to master his virtue. Consequently, he was never able to master the third virtue, order.
Benjamin Franklin was attempting to achieve moral perfection, but he did not realize until later on that failure was bound to happen. It's unavoidable, especially when attempting to reach any level near perfection. Despite his failure, he was content with the results. He believed his goals, although ending in failure, made him an overall nobler and kinder man. His original plan was to become morally perfect, but he realized he would not be able to. Eventually, he accepted this fact and it still led to him becoming a better man despite his