Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), diplomat, scientist, writer, inventor, and printer, was one of the drafters and signers of the Declaration of Independence. In his spare time, he founded the University of Pennsylvania and the first American public library.
If you want the brutal truth, I did not expect to get much useful information out of Poor Richard's Almanack. I wondered, what could Benjamin Franklin--a guy who has been, no offense, dead for more than two hundred years--possibly have to say that would be relevant to a resident of today's dot-com world? Plenty, as it turns out. --from the Introduction by Dave Barry