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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Benjamin Franklin (1706–90)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 265
AUTHOR: Benjamin Franklin (1706–90)
QUOTATION: Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro’ a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct Course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left, so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst.
ATTRIBUTION: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, “Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania,” The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert H. Smyth, vol. 10, pp. 57–58 (1907).
SUBJECTS: Congress