BIRTHDAYS & QUOTATIONS

May 17, 1794 Anna Jameson "In morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil." May 17, 1953 Tara Brach "Feeling compassion for...

May 11, 1918 Richard P. Feynman "The most interesting phenomena are, of course, in the new places, the places where the rules do not work - not the places where they do work! That is the way in which we discover new rules." May 12, 1820 Florence Nightingale "So never...

May 7, 1812 Robert Browning "Ignorance is not innocence but sin." May 7, 1861 Rabindranath Tagore "You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water."

May 3, 1849 Jacob Riis "I'd look at one of my stonecutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that...

April 28, 1926 Nell Harper Lee "Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." April 28, 1948 Terry Pratchett "It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone,...

April 26, 1889 Ludwig Wittgenstein "A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push." April 26, 1933 Carol Burnett "You have to go through the falling down in order to learn...

April 16, 1889 Charlie Chaplin "We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.” April 16, 1906 Wendell Johnson...

April 13, 1840 Samuel Ullman "Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul." April 13, 1906 Samuel Beckett "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try...

March 30, 1135 BCE Maimonides "Anticipate charity by preventing poverty." March 30, 1820 Anna Sewell "My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt."

March 25, 1906 A.J.P. Taylor "There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment—and nothing more corrupting." March 25, 1925 Flannery O'Connor "Conviction without experience makes for harshness."

March 20, 1612 Anne Bradstreet "Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish." March 20, 1828 Henrik Ibsen "Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth."

March 16, 1839 René François Armand Prudhomme "The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise up." March 16, 1958 Jorge Ramos "Neutrality is for referees in a football game. You have to take a stand. The really, really good journalists always take a...

March 11, 1544 Torquato Tasso "The day of fortune is like a harvest day, We must be busy when the corn is ripe." March 11, 1952 Douglas Adams "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic...

March 6, 1475 Michelangelo "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." March 6, 1806 Elizabeth Barrett Browning "An ignorance of means may minister to greatness,...

March 3, 1756 William Godwin "Innocence is not virtue. Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. No man can be eminently virtuous who is not accustomed to an extensive range of reflection." March 3, 1962 Jackie...

March 1, 1914 Ralph Ellison "Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values." March 1, 1917 Robert Lowell "If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it the...

February 25, 1963 Carmen Yulin Cruz "You cannot make life better if you are in a helicopter. You can't make life better for them if you can't touch them." February 26, 1802 Victor Hugo "He who opens a school door, closes a prison."

February 21, 1907 W.H. Auden "Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good." February 21, 1936 Barbara Jordan "What a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets...

February 18, 1883 Nikos Kazantzakis "True teachers use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own." February 18, 1931 Toni Morrison...

February 15, 1845 Elihu Root "The wolf always charges the lamb with muddying the stream." February 15, 1954 Matt Groening "If you don't want your kids to be like Bart Simpson, don't act like Homer Simpson."

February 11, 1957 Pico Iyer "It's no coincidence that the word 'holiday' suggests a holy day, or that the longest book in the Torah concerns the Sabbath. If you wish to advance in any sphere, the best way is to take a retreat." February 11, 1962 Sheryl Crowe "No...

February 7, 1867 Laura Ingalls Wilder "Once you begin being naughty, it is easier to go and on and on, and sooner or later something dreadful happens." February 7, 1887 Eubie Blake "Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind - listen to the birds. And don't hate...

February 2, 1932 Judith Viorst "Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands—and then eat just one of the pieces." February 2, 1937 Tom Smothers "Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important unless...

January 27, 1934 Federico Mayor Zaragoza "We must construct a new set of values and attitudes to replace the culture of war which, for centuries, has been influencing the course of civilization. Winning peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish, on a...

January 26, 1925 Paul Newman "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." January 26, 1944 Angela Davis "Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'"

January 23, 1915 Potter Stewart "Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." January 23, 1930 Derek Walcott "Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry...

January 17, 1829 Catherine Booth "If we are to better the future we must disturb the present." January 17, 1863 David Lloyd George "Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."

January 8, 1867 Emily Greene Balch "Nothing can be woven out of threads that all run the same way." January 8, 1902 Carl Rogers "In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question...

January 3, 1803 Douglas William Jerrold "A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon out of respect for that 'ancient institution' the old one." January 3, 1892 JRR Tolkien "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near...