August 25

"Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent."

Johann Gottfried von Herder
(08/25/1744 – 12/18/1803)
German philosopher ("Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind")

"The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds."

David Hume
(05/07/1711 – 08/25/1776)
Scottish philosopher ("A Treatise of Human Nature")

"One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones."

Bret Harte
(08/25/1836 – 05/05/1902)
US writer ("The Luck of Roaring Camp")

"I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

Bill Nye
(08/25/1850 – 02/22/1896)
US humorist ("Baled Hay")
(also see Bill Nye the science guy)

"The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly."

Michael Faraday
(09/22/1791 – 08/25/1867)
English scientist ("On the Various Forces in Nature")
(same dates as Paul Muni)

"Flattery must be pretty thick before anybody objects to it."

William Feather
(08/25/1889 – 01/07/1981)
US writer ("The Business of Life")

"In heaven all the interesting people are missing."

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(10/15/1844 – 08/25/1900)
German writer, philosopher ("Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None)")

"Women aren't as mere as they used to be."

Walt Kelly
(08/25/1913 – 10/18/1973)
US cartoonist ("Pogo")

"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."

Leonard Bernstein
(08/25/1918 – 10/14/1990)
US composer ("West Side Story")
(not related to Elmer Bernstein)

"Sure, I look like a white man. But my heart is as black as anyone's here."

George Wallace
(08/25/1919 – 09/13/1998)
US Governor (AL)

"You can learn more by watching 'Let's Make a Deal' than you can by watching Walter Cronkite for a month."

Monty Hall
(08/25/1921 – 09/30/2017)
Canadian TV game show host ("Let's Make a Deal")

"Here stands before you a Negro woman, raised in Harlem, who went on to become a tennis player... and finally wind up being a world champion, in fact, the first black woman champion of this world."

Althea Gibson
(08/25/1927 – 09/28/2003)
US tennis player

"More than anything else, I'd like to be an old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or Picasso."

Sir Sean Connery
(08/25/1930 – 10/31/2020)
Scottish actor ("The Rock")

"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic."

David Russell
(08/25/1942 – )
Canadian writer

"Walk amongst the natives by day, but in your heart be Superman."

Gene Simmons
(08/25/1949 – )
Israeli singer, bassist (Kiss) ("Detroit Rock City")

"There's two kinds of music—heavy metal and all the crap they play on radio and show on MTV."

Rob Halford
(08/25/1951 – )
English singer (Judas Priest) ("You've Got Another Thing Coming")

"With these vulgar fractions of the treble clef,
I wish you luck with a capital F."

Elvis Costello
(08/25/1954 – )
English singer-songwriter ("Pump It Up")
(married to Diana Krall; relationship with Bebe Buell)

"Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum."

Alfred Kinsey
(06/23/1894 – 08/25/1956)
US researcher ("Kinsey Reports")

"I wouldn't know a good script if it bit me in the face"

Tim Burton
(08/25/1958 – )
US filmmaker ("Beetlejuice")
(LTR with Helena Bonham Carter)

"Man, I love that song. I think about it at least once a day."

Billy Ray Cyrus
(08/25/1961 – )
US singer , on his hit "Achy Breaky Heart"
(father of Miley Cyrus)

"I don't want to be a star. If you have to label me anything, I'm an actor—I guess. A journeyman actor. I think 'star' is what you call actors who can't act."

Paul Muni
(09/22/1895 – 08/25/1967)
Austro-Hungarian actor ("The Story of Louis Pasteur")
(same dates as Michael Faraday)

"I've looked in the mirror every day for 20 years. It's the same face."

Claudia Schiffer
(08/25/1970 – )
German supermodel

"Life is difficult enough without Meryl Streep movies."

Truman Capote
(09/30/1924 – 08/25/1984)
US writer ("Breakfast at Tiffany's")

"My whole family's been in the business. My whole family is crazy."

Blake Lively
(08/25/1987 – )
US actor
(married to Ryan Reynolds)

"Frankly, I don't mind not being president. I just mind that someone else is."

Edward M. Kennedy
(02/22/1932 – 08/25/2009)
US Senator (MA) , on George W. Bush
(son of Rose and Joseph P., brother of John and Robert)

"Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black.'"

John McCain
(08/29/1936 – 08/25/2018)
US Senator, Representative (AZ), presidential nominee (2008), and Navy pilot
(died near his birthday)