Blathery

Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

Born this week

Soichiro Honda,

November 17, 1906August 5, 1991

Success is 99 percent failure.

Soichiro Honda was a Japanese engineer and industrialist. In 1948, he established Honda and oversaw its expansion from a wooden shack ...

John Nelson Darby,

November 18, 1800April 29, 1882

The cross is the centre of all this in every respect.

John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of ...

Clarence Day,

November 18, 1874December 28, 1935

Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.

Clarence Shepard Day, Jr. (November 18, 1874 - December 28, 1935) was an American author. Born in New York City, he attended St. Paul's ...

Jacques Maritain,

November 18, 1882April 28, 1973

A man of courage flees forward, in the midst of new things.

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he became an agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. ...

William Shenstone,

November 18, 1714February 11, 1763

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.

William Shenstone was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, ...

Alan Shepard,

November 18, 1923July 21, 1998

I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.

Alan Bartlett "Al" Shepard, Jr., was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, flag officer, one of the original NASA Mercury ...

George Wald,

November 18, 1906April 12, 1997

All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side.

George Wald was an American scientist who is best known for his work with pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in ...

Indira Gandhi,

November 19, 1917October 31, 1984

Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was the third Prime Minister of India and a central figure of the Indian National Congress party. Gandhi, who ...

Billy Sunday,

November 19, 1862November 6, 1935

There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing.

William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, ...

Allen Tate,

November 19, 1899February 9, 1979

Dramatic experience is not logical it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.

John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 - February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate ...

Corita Kent,

November 20, 1918September 18, 1986

Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed.

Corita Kent, aka Sister Mary Corita Kent, was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Kent was an American Catholic nun, an ...

Gene Tierney,

November 19, 1920November 6, 1991

Wealth, beauty, and fame are transient. When those are gone, little is left except the need to be useful.

Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as a great beauty, she became established as a leading lady. Tierney ...

Jim Bishop,

November 21, 1907July 26, 1987

A newspaper is lumber made malleable. It is ink made into words and pictures. It is conceived, born, grows up and dies of old age in a day.

James Alonzo "Jim" Bishop was an American journalist and author. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he dropped out of school after eighth ...

Barry Cornwall,

November 21, 1787October 5, 1874

O human beauty, what a dream art thou, that we should cast our life and hopes away on thee!

Bryan Waller Procter (pseud. Barry Cornwall) (21 November 1787 - 5 October 1874) was an English poet. Born at Leeds, Yorkshire, he was ...

Isaac Bashevis Singer,

November 21, 1902July 24, 1991

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born Jewish-American author. The Polish form of his birth name was Izaak Zynger and he used his mother's ...

Voltaire,

November 21, 1694May 30, 1778

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his ...

Charles de Gaulle,

November 22, 1890November 9, 1970

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was the dominant military and political leader of France for much of the period from 1940 to 1969. ...

George Eliot,

November 22, 1819December 22, 1880

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the ...

Andre Gide,

November 22, 1869February 19, 1951

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947 "for his comprehensive and artistically ...

Abigail Adams,

November 22, 1744October 28, 1818

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, the first Vice President, and second President, of the United States, and the mother of John ...

Gilbert Parker,

November 23, 1862September 6, 1932

The real business of life is trying to understand each other.

Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet PC, known as Gilbert Parker, Canadian novelist and British politician, was born at Camden ...