Oh, be quiet and leave us alone

November 3, 1901 -- French novelist and statesman Andre Malraux was born. He wrote:

"Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both of them give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness."

Brotherhood of the bewildered

October 25, 1881 -- Pablo Picasso born.

"Abstract art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered." -- Al Capp.

October 24 -- U. N. Day.

"Civilized man is born, lives and dies in slavery; at his birth he is confined in swaddling clothes; at death he is nailed in a coffin. So long as he retains the human form he is fettered by our institutions." -- Jean-Jacques Rouusseau.

Education makes the man

October 21, 1833 -- Alfred Nobel (pictured) was born. He invented dynamite, and established the Nobel Prize.

"Prizes bring bad luck...They encourage hypocrisy." -- Charles Baudelaire.

October 20, 1859 -- American educator John Dewey was born.

"Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent." -- John Maynard Keynes.

October 19, 1685 -- English physician and author Sir Thomas Browne was born. He wrote:

"Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave."

And then he dies

September 21 -- Author H. G. Wells was born Sept. 21, 1866. He wrote:

"Man is a brute...a blind prey to impulses...victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a burden, and fill his life with barren toil and trouble."

Today is Citizenship Day!

"The ideas of the average decently informed person are so warped, and out of perspective, and ignorant, and entirely perverse and wrong and crude...that the task of discussing anything with him seriously is simply appalling." -- Arnold Bennett.

Sounds like he needed a pat on the back

J. B. Priestley, English novelist, critic and broadcaster, was born on this day in 1894. He wrote:

"The men who are forever slapping one on the back and saying that everything will come right are bad enough, but more intolerable are those persons who will persist in slapping humanity itself on the back and regarding all life with an unchanging grin of approval."

He wasn't the first to think of that

H. L. Mencken, one of the patron saints of cynics, was born on this day in 1880. He wrote:

"My guess is that well over fifty percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought."

That's actually St. Augustine's slogan

The first permanent "New World" settlement was established In St. Augustine, Florida on this day in 1565.

"Cities are the abyss of the human species." -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Or a grain of sand between a baboon's toes

Writer and poet (and father of the Supreme Court justice of the same name) Oliver Wendell Holmes was born on this day in 1809. He wrote:

"I see no reason for attributing to man a significant difference in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand."



Yesterday was the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greastest German writer of all. He was born August 28, 1749. He wrote:

"Man errs, 'til his strife is over."

August 15-17

August 15, 1785: Thomas DeQuincey, English author and opium eater, was born. He wrote:

"The peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of God seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man and his restless and unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its spirit."



August 16, 1920: Poet Charles Bukowski was born. He wrote:

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”



August 17, 1893: Actress Mae West was born.

"All wickedness is little but to the wickedness of a woman." -- Ecclesiates.

He's nuts, I should hope

First use of the atom bomb on this day in 1945.

"Cursed is every one who placeth his hope in man." -- St. Augustine.

Where's everybody going?

Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on this day in 1792. He wrote:

The rapid, blind
And fleeting generations of mankind.

Get ready for the Dog Days!

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man." -- Mark Twain.

Let's get rid of it then, by all means

American humorist Don Marquis, creator of Archie & Mehitabel, was born on this day in 1878. He wrote:

"The only obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."

Moon of the Day

Man landed on the moon on this day in 1969.

"The sun and the moon and the stars would have long ago disappeared...had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands." -- Havelock Ellis.

Birthday of the Month: Henry Ford (July 12, 1863)

"I have always considered considered that the substitution of the internal-combustion machine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind.” – Winston Churchill.

Here's mud in your eye

English philosopher George Moore was born on this day in 1852.

"Humanity is a pigsty," he wrote, "where liars, hypocrites and the obscene in spirit congregate."

Then I'm the sanest person you'll ever meet

Emily Dickinson's birthday. She was born in 1830.

"It is essential to the sanity of mankind," she wrote, "that each one should think the other crazy."