Bless the beasts, the children

July 17: Art Linkletter, TV host of Kids Say the Darndest Things, was born July 17, 1912.

"I must have been an insufferable child; all children are." -- George Bernard Shaw.



July 18: English author William Makepeace Thackeray was born July 18, 1811.

"Thackeray," said fellow writer John Ruskin, "settled like a meat-fly on whatever one had got for dinner, and made one sick of it."

Well, he was blind, you know

Beethoven gave his first public performance on this day in 1795, in Vienna.

"Beethoven always sounded to me like the upsetting of bags of nail, with here and there an also dropped hammer." -- John Ruskin.

Peacocks unite!

Birthday of actress Elizabeth Taylor, born 1932.

"Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for example." -- John Ruskin.