"Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shilling a day by his labour, and goes abroad or sits idle one half that day, though he spend but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.... "In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, _industry_ and _frugality_; that is, waste neither _time_ nor _money_, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become _rich_,--if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine." In these excellent sayings, time and money are spoken of together, because time is money; and Franklin was never more economical of one than of the other. All that he says of frugality in respect to property applies equally to time, and _vice versa_. In his boyhood, when he adopted a vegetable diet, he had no money to save, so that the most of his economy related to time. It being to him as valuable as gold, he was prompted to husband it as well. To some observers he might have appeared to be penurious, but those who knew him saw that he reduced another of his own maxims to practice: "We must save, that we may share." He never sought to save time or money that he might hoard the more of worldly goods to enjoy in a selfish way. He was ever generous and liberal, as we shall see hereafter. The superficial observer might suppose that a niggardly spirit prompted him to board himself,--that he adopted a vegetable diet for the sake of mere lucre. But nothing could be wider from the truth than such a view. We cannot discover the least desire to _hoard_ the money he saved. He laid it out in books, and such things as aided him in self-improvement. He believed in temperate eating, as we have already said, and the following maxims of his show the same thing:-- "Who dainties love, shall beggars prove." "Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them." "Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries." He saw that he could never possess the books he needed, or command the time, if his appetite for luxuries was gratified. In his circumstances, the most marked self-denial was necessary, to gain his object. At the same time, he believed it would make him more healthy to be abstemious. There was not an iota of stinginess in his habitual economy. Economy of time or money is praiseworthy only when it is done to command the means of being useful,--which was true of Franklin. When it is practised to gratify a sordid love of money, it is ignoble and sinful.