事业 · 创业者自述
本杰明·富兰克林：本杰明·富兰克林自传·补录 124
本杰明·富兰克林《本杰明·富兰克林自传》· The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin · 领导
His writing and printing from time to time gave great advantage to his enemies; unguarded expressions, and even erroneous opinions, delivered in preaching, might have been afterwards explain'd or qualifi'd by supposing others that might have accompani'd them, or they might have been deny'd; but litera scripta manet. Critics attack'd his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their encrease; so that I am of opinion if he had never written any thing, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect, and his reputation might in that case have been still growing, even after his death, as there being nothing of his writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety of excellence as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed.
出处：
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/148
定位：Additional excerpt 124 · 核对日期：2026-10-19 · 核验：短摘录
白话
怀特菲尔德时常写作和印行文字，这反而让敌人抓住了把柄。布道时脱口而出的话，甚至错误观点，事后还可以解释、限定，或推说还有别的话没记全，甚至干脆否认；但白纸黑字写下来就赖不掉了。批评者猛烈攻击他的文字，而且显得有理有据，结果他的追随者减少，也难以再增加。所以我认为，他要是什么都没写，留下的教派反而会大得多、重要得多，名声也可能在他死后继续增长，因为没文字把柄可抓，追随者就能凭狂热想象，随意赋予他各种优点。
上下文
富兰克林在自传中评论怀特菲尔德出版著作的利弊，认为文字记录反而限制了其影响力。
今日一问
你公开发表的文字是否曾让你陷入被动？在开口或动笔前，如何权衡表达与风险？
公版传记；原文逐字取自 Project Gutenberg，仅摘录段落并附全书链接。
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