December 20

"I find the medicine worse than the malady."

John Fletcher
(12/20/1579 – 08/29/1625)
English writer

"Ah! What is man? Wherefore does he why? Whence did he whence? Whither is he withering?"

Dan Leno
(12/20/1860 – 10/31/1904)
English entertainer

"Though man a thinking being is defined,
Few use the grand prerogative of mind.
How few think justly of the thinking few!
How many never think, who think they do!"

Ann Taylor
(06/30/1782 – 12/20/1866)
English writer

"Considering the company I keep in this place, that is hardly surprising."

Sir Robert Menzies
(12/20/1894 – 05/15/1978)
Australian PM , on his "superiority complex" and the Australian Parliament

"When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil."

Max Lerner
(12/20/1902 – 06/05/1992)
US political columnist

"A happy childhood can't be cured. Mine'll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that's all, instead of a noose."

Hortense Calisher
(12/20/1911 – 01/13/2009)
US writer
("In the Absence of Angels")

"No, I don't understand my husband's theory of relativity, but I know my husband, and I know he can be trusted." *

Elsa Einstein
(01/18/1876 – 12/20/1936)
German physicist's spouse and cousin (married to Albert Einstein)

"I dislike organized games, swimming pools, fashionable resorts, night clubs, music in restaurants, and political manifestoes; I enjoy driving from coast to coast, good food and drink, a few friends, dogs, the theatre, long walks, music, and free conversation."

James Hilton
(09/09/1900 – 12/20/1954)
English writer

"Being spokesman for a generation is the worst job I ever had."

Billy Bragg
(12/20/1957 – )
English musician

"God heard the embattled nations sing and shout
'Gott strafe England' and 'God save the King!'
God this, God that, and God the other thing—
'Good God!' said God, 'I've got my work cut out!'"

Sir John Collings Squire
(04/02/1884 – 12/20/1958)
English journalist

"All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say 'No' and said 'Yes'."

Moss Hart
(10/24/1904 – 12/20/1961)
US writer (same birth and death dates as Denise Levertov and Adrian Mitchell)

"She always accuses me of just listening to depressing music all day."

Chris Robinson
(12/20/1966 – )
US singer (Black Crowes) (was married to Kate Hudson) , on Kate

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts."

John Steinbeck
(02/27/1902 – 12/20/1968)
US writer

"It isn't true that you live only once. You only die once. You live lots of times, if you know how."

Bobby Darin
(05/14/1936 – 12/20/1973)
US singer

"We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement."

Richard J. Daley
(05/15/1902 – 12/20/1976)
US Mayor (Chicago) (father of Richard M. Daley Jr.)

"Sometimes when I sit down to practice and there is no one else in the room, I have to stifle an impulse to ring for the elevator man and offer him money to come in and hear me."

Arthur Rubenstein
(01/28/1887 – 12/20/1982)
Polish-Israeli-US pianist

"Most of us would rather risk catastrophe than read the directions."

Mignon McLaughlin
(06/06/1913 – 12/20/1983)
US writer

"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing."

W. Edwards Deming
(10/14/1900 – 12/20/1993)
US educator

"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

Dean Rusk
(02/09/1909 – 12/20/1994)
US secretary of state , on Castro and the Cuban missile crisis

"A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror."

Ken S. Keyes, Jr.
(01/19/1921 – 12/20/1995)
US writer

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

Dr. Carl Sagan
(11/09/1934 – 12/20/1996)
US scientist, writer

"In city, in suburb, in forest, no way to stretch out the arms—so if you would grow, go straight up or deep down."

Denise Levertov
(10/24/1923 – 12/20/1997)
US writer (same birth and death dates as Moss Hart and Adrian Mitchell)

"I know a lie when I hear one."

Adrian Mitchell
(10/24/1932 – 12/20/2008)
English writer (same birth and death dates as Moss Hart and Denise Levertov)

"I think they should take everyone who works for The National Enquirer and the Star, and everyone who works for Us Weekly, and put them all to work looking for terrorists. I think they would find the terrorists. All of them. It would be genius!"

Brittany Murphy
(11/10/1977 – 12/20/2009)
US actor