Quote of the Day: Benjamin Franklin on Nature & Animals

Notice Franklin’s choice of the verb “smell” rather than “spoil” or “sour.” “Smell” is immediate, social, and impossible to argue with: you can debate motives, but you can’t debate air. It’s the moment charm turns palpable, when politeness thins and the room quietly votes for distance. Hence his tart observation: “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.”

The line isn’t anti-hospitality; it’s pro-boundary. Franklin knew that goodwill is a finite resource, replenished by privacy and drained by interruption. A visit begins as a gift, conversation, shared meals, the pleasure of attention. But time changes the accounting. The host’s routine bends, the refrigerator and the wallet empty, the small accommodations stack up. What was generous becomes compulsory. That is when affection curdles into resentment, not because the guest is terrible, but because the stay has outlasted its natural arc.

It also speaks, wryly, to the guest’s responsibility. The most considerate visitor doesn’t wait to be asked to leave; they read the subtle signals, a shorter laugh, a slower morning, a host who starts “checking one thing” on their phone. Franklin’s humor is a social lubricant, granting permission to preserve relationships by naming what people feel but rarely say. Good manners are not just warmth; they’re timing. And timing is a form of humanity.

Benjamin Franklin earned his authority in the messy overlap of public life and private virtue, printer, inventor, diplomat, and founding father who understood how societies, and households, hold together through practical leadership.

June invites company, graduations, weddings, long weekends, doors left open. Take Franklin’s counsel as a summer discipline: arrive with delight, depart with grace, and leave your hosts wanting an encore rather than an air freshener.