Who really said it

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of

Q: Did Benjamin Franklin say "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of"?

Yes. This is a rare case where a Franklin attribution holds up: the maxim first appeared in his Poor Richard's Almanack for 1746 and he restated it verbatim in his celebrated 1758 essay "The Way to Wealth", where Father Abraham quotes it as "Poor Richard says." Modern renderings tidy Franklin's capitalisation and swap his semicolon for a comma, but the wording is authentically his.

Written by Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790 · American founding father, printer & author of Poor Richard’s Almanack

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This is a rare case where a Franklin attribution holds up: the maxim first appeared in his Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1746 and he restated it verbatim in his celebrated 1758 essay “The Way to Wealth”, where Father Abraham quotes it as “Poor Richard says.” Modern renderings tidy Franklin’s capitalisation and swap his semicolon for a comma, but the wording is authentically his.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of” Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1746); restated in "The Way to Wealth" (1758)

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Evoking the world of Benjamin Franklin — American founding father, printer, scientist & almanac-maker. Theme: "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Work: Poor Richard’s Almanack, for 1746
Author: Benjamin Franklin (as “Richard Saunders”)
Restated in: “The Way to Wealth,” 1758
First published: 1745–46 (almanac); 1758 (essay)

Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright … But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of, as Poor Richard says. Poor Richard, 1758

From “The Way to Wealth” (1758), where Franklin has Father Abraham string together his best almanac maxims. The line first appeared, on its own, in the 1746 almanac.

Founders Online — Poor Richard, 1746

How we traced it

Quote databases and The Franklin Institute trace the line to Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1746, giving the wording “Dost thou love Life? then do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of.”
Wikiquote’s Poor Richard page lists the maxim among Franklin’s sourced almanac proverbs.
We read Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth” (1758) directly and confirmed the line appears verbatim, quoted as “Poor Richard says.”

Public domain

Both Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1746 and “The Way to Wealth” (1758) were published in the eighteenth century — long before the 1931 U.S. copyright threshold — so the text is firmly in the public domain.

Fact-check

A note on wording

Benjamin Franklin’s name is one of the internet’s biggest magnets for fabricated quotes, so healthy skepticism is warranted. In this case, though, the attribution is genuine — the only liberties modern quoters take are cosmetic.

Later editors, not Franklin tidied

The widely-shared form — “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of” — modernises Franklin’s capitalisation and replaces his semicolon with a comma. Franklin’s 1746 text reads “do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of,” per The Franklin Institute.

Genuinely Benjamin Franklin authentic

Unlike most feel-good lines pinned on Franklin, this one sits squarely in his documented work — both his 1746 almanac and his 1758 essay “The Way to Wealth.”

Verdict: authentically Franklin. The thought and the wording are his, first printed in Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1746 and repeated in “The Way to Wealth” (1758).

Context

Why it mattered

Franklin ran Poor Richard’s Almanack for a quarter-century, seeding each edition with proverbs on thrift, diligence and the value of time. This line distils his signature theme: that time is not merely money but the very substance of a life.

In 1758 he harvested his favourite maxims into “The Way to Wealth,” a preface in which the fictional Father Abraham lectures a crowd entirely in Poor Richard’s sayings. Reprinted and translated for two centuries, it carried this line to a global audience and cemented Franklin’s reputation as America’s foremost aphorist.

Time is not merely money — it is the stuff life is made of.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Time

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Founders Online — Poor Richard, 1746founders.archives.gov

National Archives edition of the 1746 almanac where the maxim first appeared.

Founders Online — The Way to Wealth (1758)founders.archives.gov

The 1758 essay in which Franklin restates the line as “Poor Richard says.”

The Franklin Institute — Famous Quotesfi.edu

Lists the quote and attributes it to Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1746.

Wikiquote — Poor Richard’s Almanacken.wikiquote.org

Sourced compilation of Franklin’s almanac maxims, including this one.

Wikiquote — Benjamin Franklinen.wikiquote.org

Broader sourced/attributed record for Franklin quotations.

The true author

Benjamin Franklin

1706–1790 · American founding father, printer, scientist & almanac-maker

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was a printer, scientist, diplomat and one of the founding fathers of the United States. From 1732 to 1758 he published Poor Richard’s Almanack under the pen name “Richard Saunders,” filling it with the pithy proverbs on thrift, industry and time that made him the most quoted American aphorist of the era. He gathered the best of them into his 1758 preface “The Way to Wealth,” which became one of the most widely reprinted texts of the eighteenth century.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Benjamin Franklin [as Richard Saunders], Poor Richard, 1746 (Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1745); repeated in Franklin, “The Way to Wealth,” preface to Poor Richard Improved (1758).

MLA (9th ed.)

Franklin, Benjamin [as Richard Saunders]. Poor Richard, 1746. B. Franklin, 1745.

APA (7th ed.)

Franklin, B. (1745). Poor Richard, 1746 (as R. Saunders). B. Franklin.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/dost-thou-love-life-then-do-not-squander-time-for-thats-the