Existing comment:
A Voracious Reader:
Franklin was an enthusiastic reader even as a small boy: "From a Child I was fond of Reading, and all the little Money that came into my Hands was ever laid out in Books." Franklin also enjoyed borrowing books, which he "was careful to return soon & clean." He read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Plutarch's Lives, the philosophical works of John Locke, and Anthony Collins's A Philosophical Inquiry Regarding Human Liberty, all of which informed his thinking for years to come.
"Often I sat up in my Room reading the greatest Part of the Night, when the Book was borrow'd in the Evening & to be return'd early in the Morning."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography |