Born this week
Sunday August 16th, 2026
Mae West
August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980
Love isn't an emotion or an instinct - it's an art.
Mary Jane "Mae" West was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven ...
Jean de la Bruyere
August 16, 1645 – May 11, 1696
All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
Jean de La Bruyère (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃dÉ™labÊyˈjÉ›Ê]) (August 16, 1645 - May 10, 1696) was a French ...
Samuel Richardson
August 19, 1689 – July 4, 1761
The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.
Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue ...
Samuel Goldwyn
August 17, 1879 – January 31, 1974
Here I am paying big money to you writers and what for? All you do is change the words.
Samuel Goldwyn, also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish American film producer. He was most well known for being the founding ...
Coco Chanel
August 19, 1883 – January 10, 1971
A woman has the age she deserves.
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was a French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time ...
Ogden Nash
August 19, 1902 – March 19, 1971
Middle age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you.
Ogden Nash was a screenwriter, lyricist and poet.
Bernard Baruch
August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965
To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
Bernard Mannes Baruch was an American financier, stock investor, philanthropist, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in ...
Malcolm Forbes
August 19, 1919 – February 24, 1990
Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.
Malcolm Stevenson Forbes was publisher of Forbes magazine, founded by his father B. C. Forbes. He was known as a promoter of capitalism and ...
Paul Tillich
August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965
Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German American Christian existentialist philosopher and theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most ...
Marcus Garvey
August 17, 1887 – June 10, 1940
I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH, was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch ...
H. P. Lovecraft
August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937
What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world's beauty, is everything!
Howard Phillips Lovecraft — known as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works ...
Charles Bukowski
August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994
I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.
Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-born American writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his ...
Davy Crockett
August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836
Heaven knows that I have done all that a mortal could do, to save the people, and the failure was not my fault, but the fault of others.
David "Davy" Stern Crockett was a 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in ...
Charles Horton Cooley
August 17, 1864 – May 7, 1929
An artist cannot fail it is a success to be one.
Charles Horton Cooley was an American sociologist and the son of Thomas M. Cooley. He studied and went on to teach economics and sociology ...
Henry Drummond
August 17, 1851 – March 11, 1897
Strength of character may be learned at work, but beauty of character is learned at home.
Henry Drummond (17 August 1851 - 11 March 1897) was a Scottish evangelist, writer and lecturer. Drummond was born in Stirling. He was ...
E. F. Schumacher
August 16, 1911 – September 4, 1977
Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility.
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as ...
Luther Allison
August 17, 1939 – August 12, 1997
I think I'm the most positive guy still going in my generation, and I'm out there to prove that.
Luther Allison was an American blues guitarist. He was born in Widener, Arkansas, and moved with his family, at the age of twelve, to ...
John Hawkes
August 17, 1925 – May 15, 1998
Certainly I've had the experience of thinking a person was one thing, and finding out they were another.
John Hawkes, born John Clendennin Talbot Burne Hawkes, Jr., was a postmodern American novelist, known for the intensity of his work, which ...
Marcel Carne
August 18, 1906 – October 31, 1996
It's nice to know that people appreciate and respect you.
Marcel Carné was a French film director. A key figure in the poetic realism movement, Carné's best known films include Port of Shadows, ...
Eustace Budgell
August 19, 1686 – May 4, 1737
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.
Eustace Budgell was an English writer and politician. Born in St Thomas near Exeter, Budgell was educated at Oxford University. His ...
Orville Wright
August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948
In just six weeks from the time the design was started, we had the motor on the block testing its power.
Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948), the younger of the Wright brothers, seen as one of the fathers of heavier-than-air ...
Salvatore Quasimodo
August 20, 1901 – June 14, 1968
Poetry is also the physical self of the poet, and it is impossible to separate the poet from his poetry.
Salvatore Quasimodo was an Italian author and poet. In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with ...