ClockQuotes

If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.

- Benjamin Franklin

More like this

Sunil reminds us of the pleasures of haircuts. When I first shaved my head hair off (2001 or thereabouts, when my hair retreated rapidly from the forehead and met the nape), I had recurring dreams in which I would get astonishingly hep haircuts by world's best hair artists. Slowly my brain…
And 'suburban' is code. Monday, I responded to a rich twit's complaint about how difficult his life was at $450,000 of annual income (Note: Since then, said twit has removed the post. Fortunately, Brad 'Deling' DeLong is aware of all internet traditions, and has saved the post for posterity). In…
Mark Olson of Pseudo-Polymath has a post about rights and ethics in competition that I must respond to more fully than I already have in the comments on his blog. To begin with, I must take issue with his characterization of the dispute: The two extreme positions on such laws lie between the…
I'm reviewing a series of three fundagelical short stories about famous people entering a Christian afterlife. Anthony Horvath is going to pretend that his dogma is true, and in the first story place the dead Teresa in his version of heaven to play out events as his puppet. It's not a pretty story…

Ben Franklin was a smart man, but I think most any poor young man would rather have the thousand guineas. Especially back in Franklin's day, when a guinea was a worth a guinea.