February 02

"Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it, and that a very severe one."

Hannah More
(02/02/1745 – 09/07/1833)
English writer

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince De Bénévent

"A court is an assembly of noble and distinguished beggars."

Charles Maurice de Tallyrand-Perigord
(02/02/1754 – 05/17/1838)
French statesman

"The truffle is not exactly an aphrodisiac, but it tends to make women more tender and men more likeable."

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
(04/01/1755 – 02/02/1826)
French gastronome

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

Havelock Ellis
(02/02/1859 – 07/08/1939)
English writer

"The 't' is silent, as in 'Harlow.'"

Dame Margot Asquith
(02/02/1864 – 07/28/1945)
English writer (was married to PM Herbert Henry Asquith, mother of Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco) , to Jean Harlow, on the pronunciation of "Margot."

"It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life."

Adelaide Anne Procter
(10/30/1825 – 02/02/1864)
English writer

Fritz Kreisler: "My fee is eighteen thousand dollars."

Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt: "That's agreeable, but I hope you understand that you should not mingle with my guests."

Kreisler: "Oh! Well, in that case, my fee is only five hundred dollars."
(02/02/1875 – 01/29/1962)
Austrian composer (died near his birthday)

"Shaw's works make me admire the magnificent tolerance and broadmindedness of the English."

James Joyce
(02/02/1882 – 01/13/1941)
Irish writer

"Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor'; infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people."

Wendell Phillips
(11/29/1811 – 02/02/1884)
US abolitionist

"Find out what the other team wants to do. Then take it away from them."

George Halas
(02/02/1895 – 10/31/1983)
US football coach

"No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other."

Jascha Heifetz
(02/02/1901 – 12/10/1987)
Russia-born US violinist

"The upper classes are merely a nation's past; the middle class is its future."

Ayn Rand
(02/02/1905 – 03/06/1982)
Russia-born US writer

"No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating."

Harold Rosenberg
(02/02/1906 – 07/11/1978)
US writer

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

Abba Eban
(02/02/1915 – 11/17/2002)
S. Africa-born Israeli diplomat

"Do not join encounter groups. If you enjoy being made to feel inadequate, call your mother."

Liz Smith
(02/02/1923 – 11/12/2017)
US journalist

"A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning."

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

"Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that's what jazz is all about."

Stan Getz
(02/02/1927 – 06/06/1991)
US saxophonist

"Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket, or a holding pattern over Philadelphia."

Judith Viorst
(02/02/1931 – )
US writer

"I can always tell when the mother in law's coming to stay; the mice throw themselves on the traps."

Les Dawson
(02/02/1931 – 06/10/1993)
English comic

"We got new advice as to what motivated man to walk upright: to free his hands for masturbation."

Jane Wagner
(02/02/1935 – )
US writer (Lily Tomlin's partner)

"We were foolish and young and out of our minds. That's one of the things that is different now—we are older and out of our minds."

Graham Nash
(02/02/1942 – )
English singer (Hollies, CSNY; relationship with Joni Mitchell) , on CSNY reuniting

"The American public tunes in every night hoping to see two people screwing. Obviously, we can't give them that but let's always keep it in mind."

Barry Diller
(02/02/1942 – )
US television executive

"The reason that the all-American boy prefers beauty to brains is that he can see better than he can think."

Farrah Fawcett
(02/02/1947 – 06/25/2009)
US actor (was married to Lee Majors, partner with Ryan O'Neal)

"Just because people can express themselves through their art doesn't mean they are great communicators in person."

Christie Brinkley
(02/02/1954 – )
US model (was married to Billy Joel)

"I really like to create the sound of a choir the most. If you could see what the sound of it looks like when I shut my eyes and listen, you'd see the sound as angels spanning across the universe." *

Eva Cassidy
(02/02/1963 – 11/02/1996)
US singer

"My wife has good taste. She has seen very few of my movies."

Boris Karloff
(11/23/1887 – 02/02/1969)
English actor (married seven times)

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."

Lord Bertrand Russell
(05/18/1872 – 02/02/1970)
Welsh philosopher (was married to Dora, Countess Russell)

"When she lowers her eyes she seems to hold all the beauty in the world between her eyelids; when she raises them I see only myself in her gaze."

Natalie Clifford Barney
(10/31/1876 – 02/02/1972)
US writer

"I got this feeling I'm gonna die before I get old. I don't know why. I just have this feeling."

Sid Vicious
(05/10/1957 – 02/02/1979)
English punk (Sex Pistols) (also see Johnny Rotten, Malcolm McLaren)

"There was no model for what I tried to do with dance... And the thing Fred (Astaire) and I used to bitch about was that critics didn't know how to categorize us. They called us tap dancers because that was considered the American style. But neither of us were basically tap dancers."

Gene Kelly
(08/23/1912 – 02/02/1996)
US dancer, actor, director, singer...

"Sometimes my quotes may be too colorful."

Earl Butz
(07/03/1909 – 02/02/2008)
US secretary of agriculture

"It's compassion that makes gods of us."

Dorothy Gilman
(06/25/1923 – 02/02/2012)
US writer

"I know I wasn't as handsome as some other guys, but I was okay with that."

Philip Seymour Hoffman
(07/23/1967 – 02/02/2014)
US actor