Look before, or you'll find yourself behind. — Benjamin Franklin · Smartyfair

Look before, or you'll find yourself behind.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790 · inventor · 1700s AmericaBenjamin Franklin was an inventor, writer, and one of America's founding fathers who helped draft the Declaration of Independence — and was the only Founding Father to sign all four key documents of independence: the Declaration, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution.13 quotes

Source foundWisdom1700s

In plain words

Think ahead before you act. If you never look where you are going, you end up trailing the people who did.

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Where these words come from

How sure this is: 85% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
What turned up: Poor Richard's Almanack, Franklin's own annual; the text was read as entry 331 in the Almanack selections scanned at the Internet Archive. Year 1735 per the year-organised listing, not yet confirmed against a 1735 printing.
Work: Poor Richard's Almanack
Occasion: 1735
Sources checked: archive.orgChecked using claude-fable-5, 25 August 2026Read directly: entry 331, printed between 'Little strokes fell great oaks' (330) and 'Lost time is never found again' (332).
en.wikiquote.orgChecked using claude-fable-5, 25 August 2026Year-organised listing places the line in the 1735 almanack; that section carries no citation of its own.

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Little strokes fell great oaks.

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Benjamin Franklin

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