Blathery

Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Born this week

William Blake

November 28, 1757August 12, 1827

Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

William Blake was an English painter, poet and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal ...

C. S. Lewis

November 29, 1898November 22, 1963

How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.

Clive Staples Lewis, commonly called C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, poet, academic, ...

Jimi Hendrix

November 27, 1942September 18, 1970

My goal is to be one with the music. I just dedicate my whole life to this art.

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American musician, guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four ...

Dale Carnegie

November 24, 1888November 1955

Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

Dale Breckenridge Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, ...

Baruch Spinoza

November 24, 1632February 21, 1677

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher. The breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until many years after his ...

Laurence Sterne

November 24, 1713March 18, 1768

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

Laurence Sterne was an Anglo-Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram ...

Wendell Phillips

November 29, 1811February 2, 1884

Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government.

Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer.

Andrew Carnegie

November 25, 1835August 11, 1919

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th ...

Amos Bronson Alcott

November 29, 1799March 4, 1888

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.

Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting ...

William Cowper

November 26, 1731April 25, 1800

The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.

William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century ...

James Allen

November 28, 18641912

Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

James Allen was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement. His ...

Bruce Lee

November 27, 1940July 20, 1973

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong action film actor, Hong Kong American martial artist, martial arts instructor, philosopher, filmmaker, and the ...

Louisa May Alcott

November 29, 1832March 6, 1888

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Raised ...

Pope John XXIII

November 25, 1881June 3, 1963

Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.

Pope John XXIII, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, reigned from 28 October 1958 to his death in 1963, canonised in 2014 and known to Catholics ...

Charles M. Schulz

November 26, 1922February 12, 2000

Jogging is very beneficial. It's good for your legs and your feet. It's also very good for the ground. If makes it feel needed.

Charles Monroe Schulz, nicknamed Sparky, was an American cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Peanuts. He is widely regarded as one ...

Joseph Wood Krutch

November 25, 1893May 22, 1970

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

Joseph Wood Krutch (pronounced krootch) (November 25, 1893 - May 22, 1970) was an American writer, critic, and naturalist. Born in ...

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 ...

Lewis Thomas

November 25, 1913December 3, 1993

Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow.

Lewis Thomas was an American physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher. Thomas was ...

Cyril Cusack

November 26, 1910October 7, 1993

Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.

Cyril James Cusack (26 November 1910 - 7 October 1993) was an Irish actor, who appeared in numerous films and television productions in a ...

Virgil Thomson

November 25, 1896September 30, 1989

Let your mind alone, and see what happens.

Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He ...

Ellen G. White

November 26, 1827July 16, 1915

The words of the Bible, and the Bible alone, should be heard from the pulpit.

Ellen Gould White was a prolific author and an American Christian pioneer. She, along with other Sabbatarian Adventist leaders, such as ...

Gertrude Jekyll

November 29, 1843December 8, 1932

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness it teaches industry and thrift above all it teaches entire trust.

Gertrude Jekyll was an influential British horticulturist, garden designer, artist and writer. She created over 400 gardens in the United ...

John Ray

November 29, 1627January 17, 1705

Beauty is power a smile is its sword.

John Ray was an English naturalist, widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists, and the man with whom "the ...

John Bacon

November 24, 1740August 4, 1799

I heard that Jesus had a pet dinosaur. Evolution must be a myth then.

John Bacon (November 24, 1740 - August 4, 1799) was a British sculptor. Born in Southwark, he was the son of a cloth worker from Somerset. ...

Lope de Vega

November 25, 1562August 27, 1635

Dreaming of a tomorrow, which tomorrow, will be as distant then as 'tis today.

Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century of Baroque ...

Joseph Lancaster

November 25, 1778October 23, 1838

The complaint of bad pay, and difficulty in obtaining it, is almost generally reiterated through every department of education.

Joseph Lancaster (25 November 1778 - 23 October 1838) was an English Quaker and public education innovator. Lancaster was born the son of ...

Isaac Rosenberg

November 25, 1890April 1918

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.

Isaac Rosenberg (25 November 1890 - 1 April 1918) was an English poet of the First World War who was considered to be one of the greatest ...

Eugene Ionesco

November 26, 1909March 28, 1994

A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind.

Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian playwright who wrote mostly in French, and one of the foremost figures of the French Avant-garde theatre. ...

Lefty Gomez

November 26, 1908February 17, 1989

I'm the guy that made Joe DiMaggio famous.

Vernon Louis "Lefty" Gomez was an American professional baseball player. A left-handed pitcher, Gomez played in Major League Baseball ...

Eric Sevareid

November 26, 1912July 9, 1992

Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.

Arnold Eric Sevareid was a CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents hired by pioneering CBS ...

Stefan Zweig

November 28, 1881February 22, 1942

In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.

Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, ...

John Bunyan

November 28, 1628August 31, 1688

My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it.

John Bunyan was an English writer and preacher best remembered as the author of the religious allegory The Pilgrim's Progress. In addition ...

Friedrich Engels

November 28, 1820August 5, 1895

Freedom is the recognition of necessity.

Friedrich Engels was a German social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, together with Karl ...

Billy Strayhorn

November 29, 1915May 31, 1967

All music is beautiful.

William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best known for his successful ...