I couldn’t sleep the other night so I ended up watching a documentary about Benjamin Franklin on the History Channel. Ben Franklin was a really interesting guy.  In addition to being a printer, an inventor, a Francophile, and one of the authors of the US constitution, Ben Franklin was also really good at coming up with aphorisms.  An aphorism is a clever little saying that captures some essential truth.  For example, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” was one of Ben Franklin’s aphorisms.  And the famous line, “In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes,” which I have always attributed to Woody Allen, was also one of Ben Franklin’s.  I’d never really thought much about aphorisms before, but now I’m obsessed with them and I spent much of this past week trying to come up with a few of my own.  Below are the modest fruits of my labor.  My sincere hope is that just one of them will stand the test of time as well as Ben Franklin’s, “Fish and visitors stink after three days.”