August 16

"He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."

Ben Jonson
(06/11/1572 – 08/16/1637)
English writer ("Every Man in His Humour")

"It is the glory and merit of some men to write well, and of others, not to write at all."

Jean de la Bruyere
(08/16/1645 – 05/10 or 05/11/1696)
French scholar ("Caractères")

"Suspect all extraordinary and groundless civilities."

Thomas Fuller
(06/19/1608 – 08/16/1661)
English writer ("Worthies of England")

"If you want to go east, don't go west."

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
(02/18/1836 – 08/16/1886)
Indian philosopher

"Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand."

T. E. Lawrence
(08/16/1888 – 05/19/1935)
Welsh writer ("Seven Pillars of Wisdom")

"Anybody who has any doubt about the ingenuity or the resourcefulness of a plumber never got a bill from one."

George Meany
(08/16/1894 – 01/10/1980)
US labor organizer

"The Negro and all things negroid had become a fad, and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish pilgrimages were in order... Seventh Avenue was the gorge into which Harlem cliff dwellers crowded to promenade."

Wallace Henry Thurman
(08/16/1902 – 12/22/1934)
US writer

"Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes."

E. F. Schumacher
(08/16/1911 – 09/04/1977)
German-born economist

"Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink."

Charles Bukowski
(08/16/1920 – 03/09/1994)
US writer ("Post Office")

"Looking for enlightenment is like looking for a flashlight when all you need the flashlight for is to find the flashlight."

Lew Welch
(08/16/1926 – 05/23/1971)
US writer ("Trip Trap: Haiku on the Road")
(stepfather of Huey Lewis)

"Jazz is not a what, it is a how."

Bill Evans
(08/16/1929 – 09/15/1980)
US pianist

"Oh how sweet it is to hear one's own convictions from another's lips."

Frank Gifford
(08/16/1930 – 08/09/2015)
US football player, announcer
(was married to Kathie Lee Gifford; died near his birthday)

"It was so wonderful being on 'Batman,' because you could be nasty and mean, and in the fifties women could never (unless you were some 'B' picture actress) be mean, bad, and nasty. It was so satisfying; I can't tell you how satisfying it was."

Julie Newmar
(08/16/1933 – )
US actor

"The Devil made me do it the first time
the second time I done it on my own."

Billy Joe Shaver
(08/16/1939 – 10/28/2020)
US singer-songwriter
("Old Five and Dimers Like Me (1973)")

"As Duke Ellington once said, 'The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton.'"

Babe Ruth
(02/06/1895 – 08/16/1948)
US baseball player (the actual quote, often misattributed to the Duke of Wellington, was "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton")

"What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one."

Margaret Mitchell
(11/08/1900 – 08/16/1949)
US writer
(Gone With the Wind)

"The introduction of religious passion into politics is the end of honest politics, and the introduction of politics into religion is the prostitution of true religion."

Douglas McGarel Hogg, Lord Hailsham
(02/28/1872 – 08/16/1950)
English politician

"I change my hairstyle every day for the show, I'm fastidious and vain about my nails and teeth and grooming and makeup, but a perfect body, forget it. Dust to dust, wuggies to wuggies."

Kathie Lee Gifford
(08/16/1953 – )
French-born US TV person
(was married to Frank Gifford)

"I don't look at scripts. I just write them."

James Cameron
(08/16/1954 – )
Canadian director
(was married to Linda Hamilton)

"This is the most uncomfortable coffin I've ever been in."

Bela Lugosi
(10/20/1882 – 08/16/1956)
Hungarian actor , to Ed Wood on one of his movie sets

"It is my indignant opinion that 90 percent of the moving pictures exhibited in America are so vulgar, witless and dull that it is preposterous to write about them in any publication not intended to be read while chewing gum."

Wolcott Gibbs
(03/15/1902 – 08/16/1958)
US writer ("The life and death and life of George Whitehouse")

"Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion."

Madonna
(08/16/1958 – )
US singer
(was married to Sean Penn, Guy Ritchie)

"I never trust a fighting man who doesn't smoke or drink."

Admiral William Frederick Halsey
(10/30/1882 – 08/16/1959)
US military

"I think a character in a comedy should not know they're in a comedy."

Steve Carell
(08/16/1962 – )
US comic actor

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

Elvis Presley
(01/08/1935 – 08/16/1977)
US singer, rock'n'roll icon
(father of Lisa Marie)

"I'd like to borrow his body for just 48 hours. There are three guys I'd like to beat up and four women I'd like to make love to."

Jim Murray
(12/29/1919 – 08/16/1998)
US columnist , on Muhammad Ali

"If we knew the meaning to everything that is happening to us, then there would be no meaning."

Idi Amin Dada
(05/17/1925 – 08/16/2003)
African dictator

"In no other society do they have one person play with all four limbs."

Max Roach
(01/10/1924 – 08/16/2007)
US drummer , on drumming

"Everybody wants respect. In their own way, three-year-olds would like respect, and acknowledgment, in their terms."

Aretha Franklin
(03/25/1942 – 08/16/2018)
US Queen of Soul (discography)

"I was famous from birth."

Peter Fonda
(02/23/1940 – 08/16/2019)
US actor ("Easy Rider")
(son of Henry, brother of Jane, father of Bridget)