February 16

"Well-washed and well-combed domestic pets grow dull; they miss the stimulus of fleas."

Sir Francis Galton
(02/16/1822 – 01/17/1911)
English scientist ("The Art of Travel")

"There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence."

Henry Brooks Adams
(02/16/1838 – 03/27/1918)
US writer ("The History of the United States of America 1801–1817")
(son of Charles Francis Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, great-grandson of John Adams and Abigail Smith Adams)

"Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading."

G. M. Trevelyan
(02/16/1876 – 07/21/1962)
English historian

"There's a saying among prospectors: 'Go out looking for one thing, and that's all you'll ever find.'"

Robert Flaherty
(02/16/1884 – 07/23/1951)
US director

"His mind was like a Roquefort cheese, so ripe that it was palpably falling to pieces."

Van Wyck Brooks
(02/16/1886 – 05/02/1963)
US historian, critic ("Makers and Finders: A History of the Writer in America") , on Ford Madox Ford

"Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?"

Edgar Bergen (as Charlie McCarthy)
(02/16/1903 – 09/30/1978)
US comic, actor
(father of Candice Bergen)

"What do you give a man who has everything? Penicillin." *

Jerry Lester
(02/16/1910 – 03/23/1995)
US actor

"Getting involved is so, so... involving."

Vera-Ellen
(02/16/1921 – 08/30/1981)
US dancer, actor

"Hollywood is an extraordinary kind of temporary place."

John Schlesinger
(02/16/1926 – 07/25/2003)
English director

"The writer in western civilization has become not a voice of his tribe, but of his individuality. This is a very narrow-minded situation."

Aharon Appelfeld
(02/16/1932 – 01/04/2018)
Romanian writer ("Badenheim 1939")

"Don't cling to fame. You're just borrowing it. It's like money. You're going to die, and somebody else is going to get it."

Sonny Bono
(02/16/1935 – 01/05/1998)
US singer, congressman
(was married to Cher)

"Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do."

James Harvey Robinson
(06/29/1863 – 02/16/1936)
US historian

"For a time, I was living the life of Ernest Hemingway."

Margaux Hemingway
(02/16/1954 – 07/01/1996)
US actor
(granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway; sister of Mariel Hemingway)

"I've got a phone, answer machine, TV set, computer, hand grenade—everything you need to run a business in Los Angeles."

Ice T
(02/16/1958 – )
US rapper, actor

"This taught me a lesson, but I'm not sure what it is."

John McEnroe
(02/16/1959 – )
US tennis ace , on losing a championship

"I think you have to control the materials to an extent, but it's important to let the materials have a kind of power for themselves; like the natural power of gravity, if you are painting on a wall, it makes the paint trickle and it drips; there is no reason to fight that."

Keith Haring
(05/04/1958 – 02/16/1990)
US artist ("Crack is Wack")

"Books about books is fun but frivolous."

Angela Carter
(05/07/1940 – 02/16/1992)
English writer ("The Bloody Chamber")

"Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them."

John W. Gardner
(10/08/1912 – 02/16/2002)
US writer, political theorist

"If you can bring yourself to imagine Liberace as King Lear, you will perhaps have some concept of what takes place in what is indubitably the worst musical since Mel Brooks's Springtime For Hitler."

Sheridan Morley
(12/05/1941 – 02/16/2007)
English writer
(son of Robert Morley)

"I'm a musical person, and that's what I want my life to be about."

Lesley Gore
(05/02/1946 – 02/16/2015)
US singer ("Maybe I Know")

"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."

Theodore Isaac Rubin
(04/11 /1923 – 02/16/2019)
US psychiatrist, writer ("Shrink: The Diary of a Psychiatrist")