January 19

"Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment."

Dogen
(01/19/1200 – 09/22/1253)
Japanese Buddhist priest ("Shobogenzo")

"Music hath charm to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."

William Congreve
(01/24/1670 – 01/19/1729)
English writer ("The Way of the World")
(died near his birthday)

"Whiskey—I like it, I always did, and that is the reason I never use it."

Robert E. Lee
(01/19/1807 – 10/12/1870)
Confederate general

"I have great faith in fools—self-confidence, my friends call it."

Edgar Allan Poe
(01/19/1809 – 10/07/1849)
US writer ("The Tell-Tale Heart")

"The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution."

Paul Cezanne
(01/19/1839 – 10/22/1906)
French painter ("Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier")

"Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one."

Augustine Birrell
(01/19/1850 – 11/20/1933)
English politician, scholar

"The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!"

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
(01/15/1809 – 01/19/1865)
French writer ("What is Property?")
(died near his birthday)

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle can't fix."

Alexander Woollcott
(01/19/1887 – 01/23/1943)
US writer ("Shouts and Murmurs")
(died near his birthday)

"One final tip to rebels: always have a second profession in reserve."

Nigel Nicolson
(01/19/1917 – 09/23/2004)
English writer ("Portrait of a Marriage")
(youngest son of Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West)

"To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have."

Ken S. Keyes, Jr.
(01/19/1921 – 12/20/1995)
US writer

"Alfred Hitchcock thought of himself as looking like Cary Grant. That's tough, to think of yourself one way and look another."

Tippi Hedren
(01/19/1930 – )
US actor ("Marnie")
(mother of Melanie Griffith, grandmother of Dakota Johnson)

"Film-making has become a kind of hysterical pregnancy."

Richard Lester
(01/19/1932 – )
US director ("A Hard Day's Night")

"Don't compromise yourself. You're all you've got."

Janis Joplin
(01/19/1943 – 10/04/1970)
US singer

"I'm funny about who I sweat with."

Dolly Parton
(01/19/1946 – )
US singer-songwriter , on why she doesn't work out with Jane Fonda

"Do not imagine that art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence. Art is not a brassiere. At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassiere is the French for life-jacket."

Julian Barnes
(01/19/1946 – )
English writer ("The Sense of an Ending")

"Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography."

Paul Rodriguez
(01/19/1955 – )
Hispanic-US comic

"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms."

William O. Douglas
(10/16/1898 – 01/19/1980)
US Supreme Court justice

"Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself."

Gerald Brenan
(04/07/1894 – 01/19/1987)
English writer ("The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Spanish Civil War")
(was married to Gamel Woolsey)

"If Columbus had had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock."

Arthur J. Goldberg
(08/08/1908 – 01/19/1990)
US Supreme Court Justice

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new."

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
(12/11/1931 – 01/19/1990)
Indian spiritual leader

"Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting."

John Russell
(01/03/1921 – 01/19/1991)
US actor

"And I to my motorcycle
Parked like the soul of the junkyard
Restored, a bicycle fleshed
With power, and tore off
Up Highway 106 continually
Drunk on the wind in my mouth
Wringing the handlebar for speed
Wild to be wreckage forever."

James Dickey
(02/02/1923 – 01/19/1997)
US writer ("Deliverance")

"If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her nude. I hope to make you use your imagination."

Hedy Lamarr
(11/09/1914 – 01/19/2000)
Austrian actor, inventor ("Ecstasy")

"When Warren Beatty called a girl up, it was usually to try to get her into the sack. but he called me to find out what kind of bologna I used. I just don't have what it takes, I guess. Raquel Welch has what it takes. She's so sexy and gorgeous, even I want to jump on her!"

Suzanne Pleshette
(01/31/1937 – 01/19/2008)
US actor

"The American male doesn't mature until he has exhausted all other possibilities."

Wilfrid Sheed
(12/27/1930 – 01/19/2011)
US writer ("A Middle Class Education")