Did Benjamin Franklin say you will find the key to success under your alarm clock? No, he did not!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes often are attributed to Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, or Ralph Waldo Emerson. An article by Garson O’Toole at Quote Investigator on February 17, 2025 titled Quote Origin: You Will Find the Key to Success Under Your Alarm Clock? analyzed whether Benjamin Franklin said that. Franklin lived from 1706 to 1790. But the alarm clock was invented over fifty years after he died - patented over in France in 1847.

 

O’Toole found the earliest reference for that saying appeared more than a century ago in November 1922 at The Nebraska Ironmonger from Lincoln, Nebraska. And that is 132 years after Ben Franklin died! The earliest reference attributed to Franklin is from 1946 by Ezra L. Marler in a compilation titled Golden Nuggets of Thought. In 1952 it appeared in a horoscope column published in several newspapers.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There even is a fake Benjamin Franklin quotation meme generator. An example from it is shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there also is another generator for real quotes with images, one of which is shown above.

 

Images of an alarm clock and key were adapted from those found at OpenClipArt.