Born this week
Sunday November 15th, 2026
Voltaire
November 21, 1694 – May 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 ...
Gene Tierney
November 19, 1920 – November 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 ...
Aneurin Bevan
November 15, 1897 – July 6, 1960
Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a Welsh Labour Party politician who was the Minister for Health in the post-war Attlee government from 1945 to ...
Billy Sunday
November 19, 1862 – November 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, ...
Isaac Bashevis Singer
November 21, 1902 – July 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 ...
Franklin P. Adams
November 15, 1881 – March 23, 1960
Middle age occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.
Franklin Pierce Adams was an American columnist, well known by his initials F.P.A., and wit, best known for his newspaper column, "The ...
William Shenstone
November 18, 1714 – February 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, ...
Felix Frankfurter
November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965
Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Frankfurter was born in Vienna and immigrated to New York at ...
Johann Kaspar Lavater
November 15, 1741 – January 2, 1801
Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
Johann Kaspar (or Caspar) Lavater (15 November 1741 - 2 January 1801) was a Swiss poet and physiognomist. Lavater was born at Zürich, and ...
Marianne Moore
November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972
Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.
Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 - February 5, 1972) was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit. Moore was ...
Indira Gandhi
November 19, 1917 – October 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 ...
Clarence Day
November 18, 1874 – December 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, 1882 – April 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. ...
Allen Tate
November 19, 1899 – February 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 ...
Jim Bishop
November 21, 1907 – July 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, 1787 – October 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 ...
Erwin Rommel
November 15, 1891 – October 14, 1944
But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, popularly known as the Desert Fox, was a German field marshal of World War II. He earned the respect of both ...
Paul Hindemith
November 16, 1895 – December 28, 1963
People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. Notable compositions include his song cycle Das ...
Soichiro Honda
November 17, 1906 – August 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, 1800 – April 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 ...
Alan Shepard
November 18, 1923 – July 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, 1906 – April 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 ...
Corita Kent
November 20, 1918 – September 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 ...