Originally posted 31 January 2009.
I reckon it among my felicities, " Franklin told his Scottish friend Kames, "That I can set my own razor and shave myself perfectly well, in which I have a daily pleasure, and avoid the uneasiness one is otherwise obliged to suffer sometimes from dull razors and the dirty fingers or bad breath of a slovenly barber."
The naked philosopher [a reference to BF's penchant for 'air baths'] pondered matters large and small, among them why shaving himself was such a pleasure. Franklin and Kames had been comparing notes on true happiness; Franklin summarized for them both: "I have long been of an opinion similar to that you express, and think happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life."
from
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands, p. 411-2