Partnerships often finish in quarrels, but I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and ended amiably, owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of having very explicitly settled in our articles everything to be done by or expected from each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute - which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partnerships, for whatever esteem partners may have for and confidence in each other at the time of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burthen of the business, etc., which are attended often with breach of friendship and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences.


Benjamin Franklin - (1706-90), U.S. statesman, scientist, inventor and writer. Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin, edited by Russel B. Nye. 1949. p.101