November 05

"We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(11/05/1850 – 10/30/1919)
US writer (died near her birthday)

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization."

Eugene Debs
(11/05/1855 – 10/20/1926)
US labor organizer

"Human experience long ago taught us that if we allow a man or group of men autocratic powers in government or church, they use that power to oppress and defraud the public."

Ida Tarbell
(11/05/1857 – 01/06/1944)
US journalist
("The History of the Standard Oil Company")

"The poet's business is not to save the soul of man but to make it worth saving."

James Elroy Flecker
(11/05/1884 – 01/03/1915)
English writer

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."

Will Durant
(11/05/1885 – 11/07/1981)
US historian (died near his birthday; was married to Ariel Durant)

"It is my supposition that the Universe in not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we CAN imagine."

John B. S. Haldane
(11/05/1892 – 12/01/1964)
English scientist (brother of Naomi Mitchison)

"Today they're making pictures that I wouldn't want Trigger to see."

Roy Rogers
(11/05/1911 – 07/06/1998)
US actor, singer

"Exercise is done against one's wishes and maintained only because the alternative is worse."

Dr. George Sheehan
(11/05/1918 – 11/01/1993)
US physician, running enthusiast (died near his birthday)

"Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes."

Murray J. Edelman
(11/05/1919 – 01/26/2001)
US writer
("The Symbolic Uses of Politics")

"I knew I'd been living in Berkeley too long when I saw a sign that said 'Free firewood' and my first thought was 'Who was Firewood and what did he do?'"

John Berger
(11/05/1926 – 01/02/2017)
English painter
("Ways of Seeing")

"What does accelerating computer power have to do with intelligence? If you move your arms faster, do you get smarter?"

Michael L. Dertouzos
(11/05/1936 – 08/27/2001)
Greek writer

"You'll never find the answer to 'What's the right hat?'"

Art Garfunkel
(11/05/1941 – )
US singer (also see Paul Simon)

"Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other." *

Oscar Ameringer
(08/04/1870 – 11/05/1943)
German-US politician

"The words I overuse are all adverbs."

Sam Shepard
(11/05/1943 – 07/27/2017)
US writer, actor (LTR and children with Jessica Lange, relationships with Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell)

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor."

Alexis Carrel
(06/28/1873 – 11/05/1944)
French surgeon

"Aside from what they did musically, the Beatles were great ambassadors. They made everything English very cool at the time. By the time we got (to America), everyone was ready for us. Just the fact that we were English opened every door for us."

Peter Noone
(11/05/1947 – )
English singer (Herman's Hermits)

"A lot of people understand what not saying anything means, so, in effect, not saying anything is really saying a lot."

Bill Walton
(11/05/1952 – )
US basketball player and tallest Deadhead

"I draw on my memories but blended with a lot of fantasy...but let's set the record straight on something! "The Summer of '69" has nothing to do with the actual year 1969. It's about making love (69—get it?) and looking back at the good old times."

Bryan Adams
(11/05/1959 – )
Canadian singer

"There are girls, not specially beautiful, whom you could not lose in a crowd. There are other girls, apparently perfect in beauty, who seem to melt into insignificance."

Mack Sennett
(01/17/1880 – 11/05/1960)
Canadian filmmaker

"There is something insane about a lack of doubt. Doubt, to me anyway, is what makes you human, and without doubt even the righteous lose their grip not only on reality but also on their humanity."

Tilda Swinton
(11/05/1960 – )
English actor

"We've always been ready for female superheroes. Because women want to be them and men want to do them."

Famke Janssen
(11/05/1964 – )
Dutch actor

"We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us."

Lionel Trilling
(07/04/1905 – 11/05/1975)
US writer

"Abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered."

Al Capp
(09/28/1909 – 11/05/1979)
US cartoonist (Li'l Abner)

"I admit I'm much more sensitive to the scenic than the dynamic. When I was tiny I saw a fire for the first time, and afterwards I saw the façade with nothing behind. I've kept the vision of something very artificial and strange—a façade with nothing behind. And what was in front of it? Space... now haunted."

Georges Franju
(04/12/1912 – 11/05/1987)
French filmmaker

"I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them."

Vladimir Horowitz
(10/01/1903 – 11/05/1989)
Russian pianist

"A cowboy actor needs two changes of expression—hat on and hat off."

Fred MacMurray
(08/30/1908 – 11/05/1991)
US actor

"All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent."

David Brower
(07/01/1912 – 11/05/2000)
US environmentalist

"An answer is always a form of death."

John Fowles
(03/31/1926 – 11/05/2005)
English writer

"We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?"

Ernest J. Gaines
(01/15/1933 – 11/05/2019)
US writer
("The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman")