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"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 ("The Fatal Falsehood")

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

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

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

Havelock Ellis
(02/02/1859 – 07/08/1939)
English writer ("A Study of British Genius")

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

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

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 ("A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man")

"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 ("Speeches, lectures, and letters")

"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 ("Paganini Caprice No. 24")

"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 ("The Fountainhead")

"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 ("Voice of Israel")

"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 ("Natural Blonde")

"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 ("Deliverance")

"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 ("The Girl from Ipanema")

"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 ("A Clown Too Many")

"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 ("The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe")
(married to Lily Tomlin)

"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 , on CSNY reuniting
(Hollies, CSNY; relationship with Joni Mitchell)

"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 ("Charlie's Angels")
(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 ("Frankenstein")
(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 ("The Principles of Mathematics")
(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 ("Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes")

"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) ("Sid Sings")
(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... ("Singin' in the Rain")

"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 ("Capote")

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