Franklin's wisdom cuts deeper than the familiar notion that education pays off—he's describing knowledge as the only investment whose returns compound without diminishing the original. Unlike stocks or land, sharing what you know doesn't deplete your store of it; a factory worker who teaches a colleague a faster technique loses nothing while multiplying value across the shop floor. What makes this genuinely radical for his era (and ours) is the democracy implied: a person of modest means could accumulate knowledge through reading, conversation, and observation, building wealth that no circumstance could take away. That's why he spent his later years publishing almanacs and pamphlets rather than hoarding his secrets—he understood that the best dividend came not from scarcity, but from circulation.