May 23

"Linnea: A plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering but for a brief space—from Linnaeus who resembles it."

Carl Linnaeus
(05/23/1707 – 01/10/1778)
Swedish botanist, zoologist
("Systema Naturae")

"Holland lies so low they're only saved by being dammed."

Thomas Hood
(05/23/1799 – 05/03/1845)
English writer

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."

Margaret Fuller
(05/23/1810 – 07/19/1850)
US writer (great-aunt of Bucky)

"Bedside manners are no substitute for the right diagnosis."

Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.
(05/23/1875 – 02/17/1966)
US businessman

"Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts.' probably lost."

Mary Ashton Livermore
(12/19/1820 – 05/23/1905)
US social reformer

"You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth."

Henrik Ibsen
(03/20/1828 – 05/23/1906)
Norwegian writer

"You have no idea of the women I didn't marry."

Artie Shaw
(05/23/1910 – 12/30/2004)
US bandleader (was married to Evelyn Keyes, Kathleen Winsor, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, and four others)

"In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand."

Gerald Holton
(05/23/1922 – )
US physicist

"I think acting is the most thankless profession in the world."

Rosemary Clooney
(05/23/1928 – 06/29/2002)
US singer, actor (was married to Jose Ferrer twice; aunt of George Clooney)

"It's like the Roman Empire. Wasn't everybody running around just covered with syphilis? And then it was destroyed by the volcano."

Joan Collins
(05/23/1933 – )
English actor (sister of Jackie)

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
(07/08/1839 – 05/23/1937)
US gazillionaire (father of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., grandfather of Nelson Rockefeller)

"In our judgement of homosexuality—a symptom of degeneracy which could destroy our race—we must return to the guiding Nordic principle: extermination of the degenerates."

Heinrich Himmler
(10/07/1900 – 05/23/1945)
German Nazi, Gestapo head

"Sculpture is as free as the mind; as complex as life."

David Smith
(03/09/1906 – 05/23/1965)
US sculptor

"You can't fix it. You can't make it go away. I don't know what you're going to do about it, but I know what I'm going to do about it. I'm just going to walk away from it. Maybe a small part of it will die if I'm not around feeding it anymore."

Lew Welch
(08/16/1926 – 05/23/1971)
US writer