evidence: Benjamin Franklin never actually said this, one of the adages most often attributed to him. He did, however, write in the 1737 Poor Richard’s Almanack: "A penny saved is two pence clear." [...] There is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever said this epigram. Some scholars have attributed it to a Confucian philosopher named Xun Kuang, who lived in the fourth century B.C. [...] The author of this quote was not Benjamin Franklin, but fellow publisher John Webbe. It appeared in an essay in Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette on April 1, 1736: "Thank God we are in full enjoyment of these privileges [under British rule]. But can we be taught to prize them too much? Or how can we prize them equal to their value, if we do not know their intrinsic worth, and that they are not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature?"