Born this week
Wednesday January 7th, 2026
Khalil Gibran
January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in the north of modern-day Lebanon, as a young man he ...
Carl Sandburg
January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967
Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.
Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, writer and editor best known for poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and ...
Elvis Presley
January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977
I happened to come along in the music business when there was no trend.
Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is ...
Friedrich Durrenmatt
January 5, 1921 – December 14, 1990
Pretend to be dumb, that's the only way to reach old age.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of ...
Alan Watts
January 6, 1915 – November 16, 1973
And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.
Alan Wilson Watts was a British-born philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy ...
Loretta Young
January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000
Like charity, I believe glamour should begin at home.
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the ...
Zora Neale Hurston
January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short ...
Simone de Beauvoir
January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986
What is an adult? A child blown up by age.
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, commonly known as Simone de Beauvoir, was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist ...
Max Eastman
January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society; a poet, and a prominent political activist. Moving to ...
Joey Adams
January 6, 1911 – December 2, 1999
If you break 100, watch your golf. If you break 80, watch your business.
Joey Adams (January 6, 1911 - December 2, 1999), born Joseph Abramowitz, was an American comedian who was inducted into the Friars Club in ...
Isaac Newton
January 4, 1643 – March 31, 1727
Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.
Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of ...
Konrad Adenauer
January 5, 1876 – April 19, 1967
A thick skin is a gift from God.
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. As the first post-war Chancellor of Germany from 1949 to 1963, he led his country ...
Charles Peguy
January 7, 1873 – September 4, 1914
Freedom is a system based on courage.
Charles Pierre Péguy was a noted French poet, essayist, and editor born in Orléans. His two main philosophies were socialism and ...
Carl Rogers
January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987
The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.
Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology. Rogers is ...
Everett Dirksen
January 4, 1896 – September 7, 1969
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
Everett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives ...
Alvin Ailey
January 5, 1931 – December 1989
Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.
Alvin Ailey was an African-American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City. He is ...
Zebulon Pike
January 5, 1779 – April 27, 1813
You have already disarmed my men without my knowledge, are their arms to be returned or not?
Zebulon Montgomery Pike was an American brigadier general and explorer for whom Pikes Peak in Colorado is named. As a United States Army ...
Paramahansa Yogananda
January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952
The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.
Paramahansa Yogananda or Paramhansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh, was an Indian yogi and guru who introduced millions of westerners to ...
Samuel Alexander
January 6, 1859 – September 13, 1938
Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.
Samuel Alexander OM was an Australian-born British philosopher. He was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college.
Alfred Russel Wallace
January 8, 1823 – November 7, 1913
In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.
Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He is best known for ...
Lascelles Abercrombie
January 9, 1881 – October 27, 1938
The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.
Lascelles Abercrombie (also known as the Georgian Laureate, linking him with the "Georgian poets") (9 January 1881 - 27 October 1938) was a ...
H. G. Bohn
January 4, 1796 – August 22, 1884
Courage ought to have eyes as well as arms.
Henry George Bohn was a British publisher. He is principally remembered for the Bohn's Libraries which he inaugurated. These were begun in ...
William John Wills
January 5, 1834 – June 28, 1861
We have this morning dropped anchor, just off Williamstown.
William John Wills was a British surveyor who also trained for a while as a surgeon. He achieved fame as the second-in-command of the ...
Storm Jameson
January 8, 1891 – September 30, 1986
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
Margaret Storm Jameson was an English journalist and author, known for her novels and reviews. Jameson was born in Whitby, Yorkshire, and ...
Arthur Baer
January 9, 1886 – May 17, 1969
She used to diet on any kind of food she could lay her hands on.
Arthur "Bugs" Baer was an American journalist and humorist. Baer was prominent in the New York City journalism and entertainment scene for ...
Karel Capek
January 9, 1890 – December 25, 1938
Wherever on this planet ideals of personal freedom and dignity apply, there you will find the cultural inheritance of England.
Karel ÄŒapek was a Czech writer of the early 20th century best known for his science fiction, including his novel War with the Newts and ...
George Foreman
January 10, 1949 – June 19, 1969
I get up in the morning looking for an adventure.
George Edward Foreman (nicknamed "Big George"[2]) (born January 10, 1949) is a retired American professional boxer, former two-time World ...
Robinson Jeffers
January 10, 1887 – January 20, 1962
Imagination, the traitor of the mind, has taken my solitude and slain it.
John Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Most of Jeffers' poetry was written in ...