“If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.”

Context & Editorial Note

This maxim belongs to the almanack's cluster of sayings about credit, written for a colonial economy where borrowing was personal, face-to-face, and reputation-priced. The instruction is experiential rather than abstract: the price of money, Franklin suggests, is revealed only in the attempt to obtain it from someone else. The saying pairs naturally with the almanack's parallel warnings about lending — together they sketch an economics of trust conducted without banks.