February 08

"We can make mayors and officers every year, but not scholars."

Robert Burton
(02/08/1577 – 01/25/1640)
English writer ("The Anatomy of Melancholy")

"No more tears now; I will think about revenge."

Mary, Queen of Scots
(12/08/1542 – 02/08/1587)
British royalty

"Give back everything to—"

Tsar Peter the Great
(06/09/1672 – 02/08/1725)
Russian royalty , last words

"Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, and lose the medium in the wild extreme."

Aaron Hill
(02/10/1685 – 02/08/1750)
English writer ("Elfrid")
(died near his birthday)

"Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer."

John Ruskin
(02/08/1819 – 01/20/1900)
English critic ("Modern Painters")

"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast."

General William Tecumseh Sherman
(02/08/1820 – 02/14/1891)
US military
(died near his birthday)

"Whatever one man is capable of conceiving, other men will be able to achieve."

Jules Verne
(02/08/1828 – 03/24/1905)
French writer ("Journey to the Center of the Earth")

"There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water."

Kate Chopin
(02/08/1850 – 08/22/1904)
US writer ("The Awakening")

"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language."

Martin Buber
(02/08/1878 – 06/13/1965)
German theologian ("I and Thou")

"The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work."

Berthold Auerbach
(02/28/1812 – 02/08/1882)
German writer ("Auf der Höhe")

"The evolution of the capitalist style of life could be easily—and perhaps most tellingly—described in terms of the genesis of the modern Lounge Suit."

Joseph A. Schumpeter
(02/08/1883 – 01/08/1950)
Moravian-US economist ("History of Economic Analysis")

"I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in twenty minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it." *

Lord Brabazon
(02/08/1884 – 05/17/1964)
English aviator, racer

"When a woman behaves like a man, why doesn't she behave like a nice man?"

Dame Edith Evans
(02/08/1888 – 10/14/1976)
English actor ("The Whisperers")

"Marriage isn't a word... it's a sentence."

King Vidor
(02/08/1894 – 11/01/1982)
US writer-director ("Northwest Passage") , from the 1928 film 'The Crowd'

"She's descended from a long line her mother listened to."

Gypsy Rose Lee
(02/08/1911 – 04/26/1970)
US actor and entertainer ("Gypsy: A Memoir")

"The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster."

Elizabeth Bishop
(02/08/1911 – 10/06/1979)
US writer ("In the Waiting Room")

"Those who love Mankind learn to hate men."

Richard Dehmel
(11/18/1863 – 02/08/1920)
German writer ("Weib und Welt (Woman and World)")

"I'm so gullible. I'm so damn gullible. And I am so sick, of me being gullible."

Lana Turner
(02/08/1921 – 06/29/1995)
US actor ("The Postman Always Rings Twice") , on her seven marriages (the first to Artie Shaw)

"America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society."

Peter Kropotkin
(12/09/1842 – 02/08/1921)
Russian writer ("The Conquest of Bread")

"I won't quit acting until I get run over by a truck, a producer, or a critic."

Jack Lemmon
(02/08/1925 – 06/27/2001)
US actor ("The Apartment")

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."

James Dean
(02/08/1931 – 09/30/1955)
US actor ("Rebel Without a Cause")

"I think we're glazing eyes all across America."

Ted Koppel
(02/08/1940 – )
England-born US telejournalist

"The only people who ever called me a rebel were people who wanted me to do what they wanted."

Nick Nolte
(02/08/1941 – )
US actor

"It's usually, my people speak to your people and then they speak around each other and trade calls for weeks."

Mary Steenburgen
(02/08/1953 – )
US actor
(was married to Malcolm McDowell; is married to Ted Danson)

"After all my years, there are two things I've never got used to—haggling with a player over his contract and telling a boy he's got to go back."

Connie Mack
(12/22/1862 – 02/08/1956)
US baseball manager

"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin."

John von Neumann
(12/28/1903 – 02/08/1957)
Hungarian mathematician ("Theory of Games and Economic Behavior")

"There are two kinds of people in this world: Michael Jackson fans and losers."

Seth Green
(02/08/1974 – )
US actor

"The role we can play every day, if we try, is to take the whole experience of every day and shape it to involve American man. It is our job to interest him in his community and to give his ideas the excitement they should have."

John Hay Whitney
(08/17/1904 – 02/08/1982)
US gazillionaire

"Fox News has been losing a lot of viewers lately, and may they rest in peace."

Cecily Strong
(02/08/1984 – )
US comic actor (SNL)

"This is no time to pull the rug out in the middle of the stream." *

Silvio Conte
(11/09/1921 – 02/08/1991)
US Representative (MA)

"I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same."

Iris Murdoch
(07/15/1919 – 02/08/1999)
Irish writer ("Under the Net")

"I'm sick of being accused of gold-digging. It just so happens I get turned on by liver spots."

Anna Nicole Smith
(11/28/1967 – 02/08/2007)
US stripper, playmate, golddigger

"Deciding what to read is also a matter of filtering."

Jean-Claude Carrière
(09/17/1931 – 02/08/2021)
French writer ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie")