January 22

"In an examination, those who do not wish to know ask questions of those who cannot tell."

Sir Walter Raleigh
(01/22/1552? – 10/29/1618)
English explorer

"Silence is the virtue of fools."

Francis Bacon
(01/22/1561 – 04/09/1626)
English writer
("Novum Organum")

"I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite."

John Donne
(01/22/1572 – 03/31/1631)
English writer
("Devotions upon Emergent Occasions")

"He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose."

Gotthold Lessing
(01/22/1729 – 02/15/1781)
German dramatist
("Miss Sara Sampson")

"I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all."

Lord Byron
(01/22/1788 – 04/19/1824)
English writer (father of Ada Lovelace; a bit of a fling with Lady Caroline Lamb)
("Childe Harold's Pilgrimage")

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."

August Strindberg
(01/22/1849 – 05/14/1912)
Swedish writer
("The Red Room")

"So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere."

Beatrice Webb
(01/22/1858 – 04/30/1943)
English writer

"A bare assertion is not necessarily the naked truth."

George D. Prentice
(12/18/1802 – 01/22/1870)
US writer
("Prenticeana, or Wit and Humor in Paragraphs")

"I made them see, didn't I? I changed everything."

D. W. Griffith
(01/22/1875 – 07/23/1948)
US director

"A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone."

Francis Picabia
(01/22/1879 – 11/30/1953)
French artist

"If Moses had gone to Harvard Law School and spent three years working on the Hill, he would have written The Ten Commandments with three exceptions and a saving clause."

Charles Langbridge Morgan
(01/22/1894 – 02/06/1958)
English writer
("The Burning Glass")

"The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent..."

Queen Victoria
(05/24/1819 – 01/22/1901)
Queen of England (mother of King Edward VII, grandmother of Queen Marie of Romania)

"If your desk isn't cluttered, you probably aren't doing your job."

Harold S. Geneen
(01/22/1910 – 11/21/1997)
English businessman (ITT)

"Petite, pretty, and deadly as an asp."

Howard Teichmann
(01/22/1916 – 07/07/1987)
US writer , on Dorothy Parker

"Three-fourths of the mistakes a man makes are made because he does not really know what he thinks he knows."

James Bryce
(05/10/1838 – 01/22/1922)
Irish writer, diplomat

"A caress is better than a career."

Elisabeth Marbury
(06/19/1856 – 01/22/1933)
US literary and theatrical agent

"A squid, as you know of course, has ten testicles."

Graham Kerr
(01/22/1934 – )
US chef ("Galloping Gourmet")

"Fair is for games."

Nancy J. Robinson
(01/22/???? – )
US computing pioneer, systems analyst, and quotekeeper's mom

"Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances."

Sir John Hurt
(01/22/1940 – 01/25/2017)
English actor (died near his birthday)

"Come again when you can't stay so long."

Walter Richard Sickert
(05/31/1860 – 01/22/1942)
German-English painter

"Stealing things is a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world."

Malcolm McLaren
(01/22/1946 – 04/08/2010)
English entrepreneur (also see Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious)

"The secret of charm is bullsh*t."

Tyrone Power, Jr.
(01/22/1959 – )
US actor and... charmer?

"It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."

Lyndon Baines Johnson
(08/27/1908 – 01/22/1973)
US President (36), Vice President (37) (was married to "Lady Bird" Johnson) , on J. Edgar Hoover

"Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments."

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
(07/22/1890 – 01/22/1995)
US royalty (was married to Joseph P., mother of John, Robert, and Teddy Kennedy)

"You know we all became mathematicians for the same reason: we were lazy." *

Maxwell Rosenlicht
(04/15/1924 – 01/22/1999)
US mathematician, professor

"The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry."

William H. Mauldin
(10/29/1921 – 01/22/2003)
US cartoonist

"We had a good sense of humor about it, because we knew what we were holding on to and how it was going to exceed expectations and [labels]. We weren't running around naked in chaps swinging pink guns in the air. We knew that, and we found it funny that no one else did."

Heath Ledger
(04/04/1979 – 01/22/2008)
Australian actor (was partner with Naomi Watts) , on filming Brokeback Mountain

"Act like you expect to get into the end zone."

Joe Paterno
(12/21/1926 – 01/22/2012)
US football coach

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."

Ursula K. Le Guin
(10/21/1929 – 01/22/2018)
US writer
("The Left Hand of Darkness")

"You can only milk a cow so long, and then you're left holding the pail."

Hank Aaron
(02/05/1934 – 01/22/2021)
US baseball player