Ben Franklin

It amuses me that I am often remembered more for my enjoyment of the fairer sex than for my inventions, writing, and statesmanship. Yes, I did enjoy the ladies and I was often surprised that they, even the very young ones, returned my advances.

I wonder how many people know that I was born in Boston, not Philadelphia. As the youngest of fifteen children, I was quite spoiled by my mother. To bring some discipline
into my life, I was apprenticed to my older brother and I learned the trade of a printer.

Not too infrequently, I wrote things and slipped them under the door of his office. He, thinking they had been written by someone more erudite than I, printed them. When he
learned they were my musing, he was most unpleasant. I discerned it a good idea to leave, and thus I sailed on a schooner to Philadelphia.

Ahh, the city of brotherly love. How I enjoyed the environs, especially after I made the acquaintance of Deborah Reed, whom I eventually married.

In most areas I led a charmed and happy life. I followed my trade as a printer and did quite well. My life was most pleasant. I was a writer, a fair politician, and I invented useful items. Today people refer to the reading glasses I made, as 'Franklin Glasses'. That too amuses me. As you can tell, I have always been a rather jovial person, even more so when I was able to retire at the rather young age of 42.

I suppose that is what afforded me the opportunity to begin my career as a statesman. I started an organization called the Junto Club. Here, some of the learned and interesting
men of Philadelphia gathered to discuss the events of the times, and how we could benefit ourselves and others from them. This was the foundation for the Public Library. I
suppose one could say I started the library in order for more people to have access to my writings, but that was not quite my intent.

My little experiment with the kite and key may have seemed like folly to the people of my day, but you know what has become of it. I will admit, it was a bit scary, standing out there in the flashing storm, but so worthwhile. I proved a point, did I not?

I enjoyed several years of epmerimenting, but I knew the unrest that was occurring in our colonies. The people were not happy with the way they were being treated by the Crown,
and in 1754,I wrote a piece determining that it would be wise for the colonies to unite. I expounded on this thesis for a time and finally, in 1757, I was sent to England as an agent to plead the cause of our fledgling country.

It was a most enjoyable five year experience. William, the young lad I had brought back from England and adpted as my son, and I were entertained by most of the socially known and hospitable gentry. While I was considered quite a social gad-about, I was quietly making the feelings of my countrymen known. Unfortunately, those in power were not listening. They paid no heed. Most of them thought the colonists were indolent little muckrakers.

I returned to my home for a short two years. The Stamp Act was most likely the crowning blow, no pun intended. Back I went to merry old England, but again, to no
avail. Only a handful of the elite heard what I was telling them over the next ten years.
Finally, knowing I could make no changes in what was happening, I sailed home and became one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

When war broke out, our little bands of men prepared to do battle with the great might of England. I went to France and entreated them to help our cause. They responded quite
heartily, I'm happy to say, and my years in that allied country was joyfully spent. Ahh, France, how lively she was and most beautiful. But I must not remain in nostalgia, I am here to share with you my life and times. Some of course are not to be written in detail.
Suffice to say, "Oh France, how I enjoyed my sojourn there."

I believe my life was one of great delight. I enjoyed the things I did as writer, statesman, inventor, and bon vivant. I was given the opportunity to travel, to meet many great people in different countries, to be a founding father of a great nation, and to tinker with ideas that turned into successful inventions.

I always attempted to live within the dictates of my conscience. to harm no one, to be of usefulness to others, and to that extent, by Jove, I think I've done it.

A Little Bit About -- Hypatia

I speak with great love of my daughter, Hypatia. Her mother and I, Theon, were blessed with her arrival in 355. From her first sounds I was touched by a wisdom I perceived in her. As a teacher of mathematics and astronomy, I was determined she would be well educated. Her rare beauty was evident when she was still a mere child. Her mother and I admired her beauty and took great pride in her skill at learning.

I cautioned her to refrain from the common belief that a woman should be less than a man. My admonishment to her was to continually utilize her power to think and be able to contrive through her own mentality that which was right for her.

As she grew in wisdom and beauty, she desired to travel and learn from great teachers. Her capacity to question had out-distanced my simple education, thus I allowed her to travel, and gave her the means to go. First to Athens, then to Rome. Her letters were filled with the news of the day and stories as she was entertained in the homes of the leading citizens in each city.

In Alexandria, she taught Neo-Platonism. I was not in agreement with this new philosophical thought form and I was concerned about her safety. I longed for her to be with me as I aged. How blessed it might have been for both of us.

Unrest in Alexandria between the church and state brought about her eventual demise. This came long after I had passed on. My grief that she was so far distant went with me to my grave.

Hypatia's mind was set against formal religion. She taught freedom of spirit and freedom of thought. This did not sit well with the ruling church. She was accused of trying to start her own religion. In spite of threats, Hypatia stood her ground and taught her philosophy as her followers grew in vast numbers. People came from great distances to hear her speak. They were captivated by her beauty, her eloquence, and her thought provoking rhetoric.

She believe, as did Plato, that the soul of all of mankind is united. She believed in the oneness of all and the universal force of life existing in all that is. She made no individual god or gods, no graven images. Her thought was that all should think with divine mind, allowing the truth of what is within their nature to be the truth in their lives.

To know oneself, and to trust their intuition was a main facet of her teachings. For this my daughter suffered great threats and ridicule. In the end people were told that Hypatia had gone to Athens. Rumors were rampant. That she had been set upon by a frenzied mob, murdered and her remains set afire to hide the evidence was the prevalent story.

I have no desire to change what has been said. That my daughter lived, learned, and taught is of most importance to me, not how she died.

Suffice to say, Hypatia did that which she was born to do. Her beauty and intellect, and her philosophy helped others in far reaching ways. I am proud to have been her father.

A Little Bit About -- -- 'Aristotle'

My name is Aristotle. I was born in 384 BC in the mountains of Macedonia. My father, a surgeon to King Amyntas whenever he came to hunt in our mountains,died in an avalanche of stones. I was taken to the home of a relative, Proxenus, where I became a good friend of the King's son, Philip. His father treated us as equals.

In time, the king asked me to return to the capital and be a companion to his son. I declined because I wanted to go to Athens and study with the great teacher, Plato.

King Amyntas was kind and generous. When I was 17 he agreed to send me to Athens where I studied with the great master for twenty years. I found Plato to be elderly, over sixty, but like Socrates, his own teacher, he looked younger than his years.

It was a wonderful place of learning. We spent much of our time in the gardens where we read or talked and listened to lectures by our Master. We became friends. Mostly he thought of me as a son, which he did not have.

I became a teacher at the Garden School, and over the years became quite successful. I owned a large library and I studied natural history, plants, animals, nature in general, and I was most interested in economics.

When my beloved teacher died, I encountered great resistance of the people because I was considered a foreigner. I moved away, took a wife and in time was summoned by King Philip to come to Macedonia and be a teacher to his thriteen year old son, Alexander.

At that time, I was forty two, filled with health and vitality. I often rode into the desert and slept under the stars. I loved animals and had what you today would call a zoo. Alexander and I trained many animals and we kept a menagerie of all kinds of species. We studied horses, and once we made a skeleton of the bones. We were laughed at by people who believed we were trying to make a living animal.

Alexander became a great military leader in his time. He fought to defend Greece from the Persians. He went on to conquer many lands and we corresponded until his death. When that happened, I was again assailed because I was a foreigner. I retreated to my county home where I lived and taught until I died at the age of 62.

I believe that I am best known as a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander. I do not feel that my wisdom was greater than another, or that I excelled at any study. I have always believed that people should live in gentleness, moderation, and helpfulness.

We are all part of the nature of life and should live accordingly.

Trust yourself, know that wisdom lies within you, and be guided by your intuition.

Happiness itself is sufficient excuse. Beautiful things are right and true; so beautiful actions are those pleasing to the gods.

Wise men have an inward sense of what is beautiful and the highest wisdom is to trust this intuition and be guided by it. The answer to the last appeal of what is right lies within a man's own breast.

Trust thyself.

"What say you Socrates of these scribblings of Aristotle?"

"I think his modesty is exceeded only by his greatness. Did he not discern that all truth is relative? His contention was that things are perceived according to the view. You taught him well, Plato."

"I well recall when he arrived at the Academy. His zeal for learning esoteric principles was over shadowed by his desire to understand physical anatomy. He was a man of science, imbued with the need to understand the physical as well as mental."

"Yes, Plato, he has left future generations much to think of. Perhaps, had he preceded us, we might have clamored to be his students."

"I believe we would have, Socrates. I also believe that the legacy left by Aristotle has been our legacy as well."

"Teacher or student, Plato, who shall say which is greater?"

"None. Each has made his own worthwhile contribution. Aristotle personified the best of both. I commend his modesty, I extol his virtue, and I admire his genuine ideals."

"Shall we go and confer our accolades upon him?"

"He would be embarrassed, Socrates, let us merely add this commentary to that which he has humbly written."

Socrates and Plato

I have no desire to write this communication. Socrates, my teacher and friend, asked that I write for both of us.

"You know me as well as I know myself, dear friend," he informed me. "When you write of me, remember my one axiom was to know thyself."

I, Plato, am amused that he would say thus. Great were his oratories, his lectures, and most of all, his interrogation of the Sophists. He rallied wherever there was an ear. Only in the presence of his wife did he remain in a 'dumb' state. Many times she pulled him from a public lecture or debate to accost him for being idle.

"It is not true, what you speak, Plato. I was not idle. My work was to teach, thus I did so. Did I not teach you? You, who became the writer with books read through all these many generations. I have no books, only the statues I sculpted as a young man. I have no written work."

"Yes, Socrates, but you have given more than the written word. You produced the ideas, you taught great men who were to inscribe the words for posterity."

I am amused. He directs me to relate the information, which I do not wish to do, then he interrupts me with his comments. It is as it was. When we were together in the great halls of Athens, he would bid me to begin the oratory, and then proceed to question me until he was conducting the speech.

"I questioned to learn my own thoughts, Plato. The mind is stimulated by debate. Did my questions not stir you to greater thoughts?"

"True, Socrates, in the ten years we were together you assaulted my mind. You were always the leader, I the follower. Even at your death I would have followed you, drunk the hemlock with you, but you persuaded me to carry on, to write your philosophies."

"Yes Plato, but you left Athens, the center of learning and went to Syracuse, cursed city of neglected intelligence."

"I could not remain in Athens after you were forced to take your life, dear Socrates. I went to Syracuse after leisure travel through Italy to Egypt, only after repeated requests from Dionysius, the ruler."

"What did he do? He sold you as a debtor."

"I was given my freedom by a faithful benefactor and returned to Athens to continue my work."

"Ahh, do I have silence for a brief moment? Have you no retort, Socrates? Good,then I shall continue the text, as I was asked to do."

After my return to Athens I was given the opportunity to start an Academy where I taught young students among the gardens and trees. Always I attempted to teach them the importance of classifying one's thoughts in order to think logically. My greatest pupil was Aristotle, who became my trusted companion for many years. To him I handed down the teachings of Socrates and my own thoughts about life.

It was my firm belief that the sate should be governed by an authority that would grant equality to all.

I felt that people would work well if they were assigned to a labor they had a talent for and enjoyed doing.

I believed in equality. I had been fortunate to be born into a family of wealth, which my friend Socrates was not, still, I felt not superior to him or to any human. I might have been gifted by the design of the Creator to learn, write and teach, but others too were gifted, to carve, build, harvest and create.

Even a blind many can learn to play a lute and give music to his neighbors. A crippled one can learn to weave and make fine clothes for others.

I believed that women were not inferior to men, except perhaps in strength. Socrates's mother was a nurse and midwife who supplemented his father's stone cutting income.

In my dialogue, "The Republic", I extolled the virtue of woman. I deplored that a woman should be forced into a marriage against her will. To have or not have a child was for her to decide, not a husband or ruling authority.

"May I intercede at this point, Plato?"

"You will with or without my approval."

"I owe you a debt of gratitude for preserving my teaching in Athens after I had been labeled a heretic and forced to drink Hemlock. Most of all though, I wish to commend you on your expanded consciousness. You took my humble beliefs and combined them with your own. Frequently I have been given credit for philosophies that were yours."

"It is of no consequence, my friend. Surely the seed of the idea was planted by you."

"Just as you planted the seeds in Aristotle, who expanded on them."

"There is one major seed of an idea that should be passed on to all generations,Socrates."

"What might that be?"

"To know thyself."

A Little Bit About 'Confucius'

Hello, my name is Confucius. I was born in China in 51 BC. My father Heih, was governor of one of the areas in China. He was in his seventies when I was born and died when I was three. My mother was a beautiful woman, much younger than my father and it was she who taught me to work hard, live humbly, and serve my fellowman.

From an early age I was taught that I was no better than any of the other children in the village. My father's status as governor was an honor he had earned, not mine, and I was made to work in the garden, tend the herds, and bring food and water.

Our life was simple. The hard work helped develop my body to be strong. The quiet times at work gave me time to think about nature. I loved the beauty of the world, especially music. I learned to play the lute, which is similar to today's guitar. Great happiness for me was to play and sing songs that I made up. People would come from far and near to hear my songs, and I thanked heaven for my ability to entertain them.

Because of my father's position, I was considered a 'prince' As I got older, my duties were to ride troughout our state and make sure the people were living in harmony, and there was no unrest. Numerous times I found herders fighting over cattle, or where the goats were to graze. I would tell them to treat each other as they wished to be treated. Today that is known as "The Golden Rule", to me, it was a way of life.

Once when I had become weary of all the fighting occurring among my people, I painted the symbol of love and friendship on a piece of wood and placed it in front of my tent. It became a flag of peace that people would carry with them in a show of friendship to strangers.

I tried to teach people that quarreling is useless. It tires the body and mind. It causes what you call stress, and in the end no one really wins since each body has been depleted by the friction.

I always believed that the nature of heaven is in the heart, that we are all united by that nature. Whatever in nature we harm, we so harm ourselves. Whatever good we do for others, we also do for ourselves. I also believed that heaven provides us with all that we need in life.

I was considered a teacher in my time. Now I am called a philosopher. I believed that every truth has four corners and as a teacher I give you one corner and it is for you to find the other three. When a man has been helped around one corner of a square and cannot manage by himself to get around the other three, he is unworthy of further assistance.

Perhaps some of the things I believed in that long ago time would be useful to the people of today. Some of them I learned from a great Chinese philosopher, Lao-tsze, whom I visited often. I present some of those thoughts to you now. Be guided by them, use them in your life, and you will create for yourself a world that brings you great happiness.

"Let a man's labor be proportioned to his needs, for he who works beyond his strength does but add to his cares and disappointments. A man should be moderate even in his efforts."

"Beware of ever over doing that which you are likely, sooner or later, to repent of having done."

"As riches adorn a house, so does an expanded mind adorn and tranquilize the body. Hence it is that the superior man will seek to establish his motives on correct principles."

"The men of old spoke little. It would be well to imitate them, for those who talk much are sure to say something it would be better left unsaid."

"A man must reason calmly for with reason, he would look and not see,listen and not hear."

"We should not search for love or demand it, but so live that it will flow to us."

Perhaps my thoughts and beliefs would be laughed at in your world today. It is indeed a much different world than mine, more complex, industrialized and technical. We lived simply in my time, working the land, tending the cattle, using our hands to build without machinery.

But, somehow I feel that these words and ideas can be used in any time, with any people. I hope you will consider them in the context of your world. I also hope that you will find joy in the life you live.

Love the land and all of nature. Be thoughtful of your neighbor, and work so that you feel you have always done your best. Treat yourself with kindness and treat others as you would treat yourself.

A Little Bit of Emerson

Such an ado was made at my passing from this life. Surely people knew that I was ready for the journey. Near the end, my memory failed, and my mind was not as keen and agile as it had been. I no longer wrote, nor could I converse with a degree of competency. Time had taken its toll, but I had been ready and I knew I was about to embark on another journey.

It had been an easy life that I enjoyed during the early times. Life was not complex. I came from a respected family, was fortunate to receive a good education, and had the benefits of good friends of intelligence.

As a young man I aspired to become a minister. I achieved that goal, but in time I determined it was not the life for me. My philosophies were not readily acceptable to the clergy. When I left the ministry, I embarked on a trip to England where I had longed to go to meet with men of literature. In my youthful mind, I believed this young country of America had no literary masters.

In years to come, I would know men such as Carlyle, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Dickens, who would become friends. I was privileged to dine with Tenneyson, exchange ideas with Macaulay, admire the inventiveness of George Stephenson, and the mind of Thackeray.

As I grew older and wiser, I admired and respected my countrymen: Bronson; Alcott; Henry James: Margaret Fuller; Nathaniel Hawthorne, and my dearest friend, Henry David Thoreau, the young man I had taken into my home to assist me in my attempt at farming.

How grand and yet simple were his stories. His oneness with nature embellished all that he said and did. Well I recall helping to get him a scholarship to Harvard, and the joy I felt when he returned, still imbued with his love of nature, non plussed by the classic education.

What can I say of my life? That I enjoyed the company of all people? I was equally at home with the laborer as with the socially elite. I wrote my thoughts and feelings, and people invited me to speak them in public lectures. I was an admirer of the Plato philosophy, and a member of the Transcendentalist Society. My joy was exchanging ideas with anyone who cared to listen.

To be a poet of worth was my greatest aspiration, but it was not to be. My rhyme and verse were acceptable, but not of great literary value.

As a farmer I also failed. Hawthorne once wrote that my idea of farming was to lean on a hoe while Thoreau leaned upon a rake, and Alcott sat on the fence. It is somewhat true. We greatly enjoyed discourse over workhorse.

My thoughts and philosophies were not new. They had been the filtration of wisdoms from earlier times. I embraced the thoughs and beliefs of master before me, then reconciled them with my own intuitive spirit. In my essay, "Fate", I wrote:

"No one can read history of astronomy without perceiving that Corpernicus, Newton, Laplace. are not new men, or a new kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Emp- edocles, Aristarchus, Phythagora, OEnipodes, had anticipated them;"

Did not Socrates and Plato come before Immanuel Kant? And before Moses, Confucius and Pythagoras? When people today speak of New Thought, compare it to ancient wisdoms, and you will find that nothing new exists under the sun that has not been envisioned by another.

How do I apprise myself as a writer? In my essay on beauty, I stated:

"It is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way," or, "To clothe the fiery thought, In simple words succeeds, For still the craft of genius is To mask a king in weeds."

I believe that we could learn much from the laborers who work close to nature. Watch a man build a bridge, see a woman tend her garden, observe the tin maker crafting his wares, and you see nature in her finest hours.

If we are true to our nature, open our minds to the voice of the universal spirit, allow the will of fate to guide our actions, break no law of nature, then we have lived to the fullest measure of our being. To that end, I hope I achieved a modicum of success.