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Benjamin Franklin Vs Eliot Essay

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Benjamin Franklin and T.S. Eliot, two intellectual men who were born almost two hundred years apart, but still their virtues shared common theme. They were both well-educated and both were concerned about improving. Self or society improvement. While Franklin’s virtues were mostly about self-improvement, Eliot’s values were about the society; however, both matters in self and society improvement. Benjamin Franklin was a wise man that despite the fact that he was lacking in his marriage life, he was still concerned about self-improvement and was constantly thinking about a way to bettering himself. He had thirteen virtues, including: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, …show more content…

They both believed that individuals need to be in control of their action and harm no one. As Franklin put it in words, all these virtues are there for “Coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained, against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations.” (Franklin 84) As wise men, they knew that human beings all, despite their knowledge or their maturity or class, have some bad habits, which can be harmful sometimes and so everyone need a little guide or set of rules to stop or remind them that they need to sometimes just stop and review their actions. On the other hand, while Franklin’s virtues were mostly focused on personal level, Eliot’s values were mainly focused on the social level. Eliot was living in an era that people were facing a very hard time. World War changed a lot of things for everyone. A lot of cities were destructed and a lot of people were dead and so it was basically a wasteland, and for this reason Eliot was mostly concerned about the society as a whole and how they all want to move on from this mess and not how each individual could be a better

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