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Salon
Salon
Lifestyle
Hanh Nguyen

HISTORICAL FACTS: Ken burns on the flawed ben franklin | History Defined

Benjamin Franklin portrait by Joseph Siffred Duplessis The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."

Benjamin Franklin's oft-paraphrased quote, which pops up in the second season of Neflix's drama "Virgin River," is employed by a small-town mayor who begrudgingly takes in someone she dislikes. It's a favorite quote of reluctant hosts, for obvious reasons but also a testament to the enduring wit of Franklin more than 250 years later.

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