Words of Wisdom

“It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.”- Molière

“People don’t choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.”- John Dos Passos (born on this date in 1896)

“I like the fact that I’m living in the world rather than in a university.”- Jay McInerney (born on this date in 1956)

“I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” – Jack London (born on this date in 1876)

“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” – Alexander Hamilton (born on this date in 1755)

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” -George Washington Carver (born on this date in 1864 – we think)  

“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”- Simone de Beauvoir (born on this date in 1908)

“The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.” – Elvis Presley (born on this date in 1935)

“To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.” -Nicolas Cage (born on this date in 1964)  

“Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.” – Joan of Arc (born on this date in 1412)

“When men stop believing in God, it isn’t that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.”- Umberto Eco (born on this date in 1932)

“The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others.”- Don Shula (born on this date in 1930)

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”-Isaac Asimov (born on this date in 1920)

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”-J. R. R. Tolkien (born on this date in 1892)

“He never is alone that is accompanied with noble thoughts.”- John Fletcher (born on this date in 1579)

“Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.” – Jean Genet

“A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.”- Ramsey Clark (born on this date in 1927)

“Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.”- William Safire (born on this date in 1929)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” ― Jane Austen

“Nothing in the world can one imagine beforehand, not the least thing, everything is made up of so many unique particulars that cannot be foreseen.” ― Nostradamus (born on this date in 1503, we think)

“Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.”- Muriel Rukeyser (born on this date in 1913)

“The one who comes to question himself cares for mankind.” ― Kenneth Patchen (born on this date in 1911)

“No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”- Edvard Munch (born on this date in 1863)

“You only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power–he’s free again.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (born on this date in 1918)

“Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb.”- Nadine Gordimer (born on this date in 1923)

“It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.” ― J.D. Salinger

“I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.”- Henri Matisse (born on this date in 1869)

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.” ― Rudyard Kipling (born on this date in 1865)

“I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits.”- Charles Goodyear (born on this date in 1800)

“Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.” ― Guy Debord (born on this date in 1931)