Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection

It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong the reasons. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and the good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I contrived the following method.

Benjamin Franklin’s Secret of Success and What It Did for Me by Frank Bettger

This chapter probably should have been in the beginning of the book, but I have saved it for the last, because it is, perhaps, the most important of all. It is the track I ran on.

I was born during the blizzard of 1888 in a little row house on Nassau Street, in Philadelphia. On both sides of our street there were lamp-posts about every fifty yards. As a small boy I can remember watching every evening just about dark for the lamplighter who came through the street carrying a roaring torch. He stopped at each lamppost, reached his torch high up into the lamp, and lighted it. I usually watched him until he disappeared from sight, leaving a trail of lights behind him so that people could see their way.