Born this week
Sunday April 26th, 2026
William Shakespeare
April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616
A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the ...
Marcus Aurelius
April 26, 121 CE – March 17, 180 CE
Anger cannot be dishonest.
Marcus Aurelius was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. He was the ...
Joseph Addison
May 1672 – June 17, 1719
Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts old age is slow in both.
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name ...
James Dyson
May 2, 1947 – January 22, 1990
In the digital age of 'overnight' success stories such as Facebook, the hard slog is easily overlooked.
Sir James Dyson, CBE, FREng is a British inventor, industrial designer and founder of the Dyson company. He is best known as the inventor ...
Herbert Spencer
April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903
In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.
Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of ...
David Hume
April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, diplomat and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and ...
Edward Gibbon
April 27, 1737 – January 16, 1794
I was never less alone than when by myself.
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman ...
Novalis
May 2, 1772 – March 25, 1801
Where children are, there is the golden age.
Novalis was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, a poet, author, and philosopher of early German Romanticism.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951
The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the ...
Karl Kraus
April 28, 1874 – June 12, 1936
Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He directed his satire at ...
Hosea Ballou
April 30, 1771 – June 6, 1852
Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.
Hosea Ballou (April 30, 1771 - June 7, 1852) was an American Universalist clergyman and theological writer. Hosea Ballou was born in ...
Kate Smith
May 1907 – June 17, 1986
In 29 years, I had recorded over 2,200 songs. I was amazed.
Kathryn Elizabeth Smith known professionally as Kate Smith and The First Lady of Radio was an American singer, a contralto, best known for ...
Jerome K. Jerome
May 2, 1859 – June 14, 1927
We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe.
Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat. Other works include the ...
Ulysses S. Grant
April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885
Labor disgraces no man unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States. In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Armies to victory over ...
Mary Wollstonecraft
April 27, 1759 – September 10, 1797
The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she ...
Duke Ellington
April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it.
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist and bandleader of jazz orchestras. He led his orchestra from 1923 until ...
Catherine the Great
May 2, 1729 – November 17, 1796
I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.
Catherine the Great is a 1934 British historical film based on the play The Czarina by Lajos Bíró and Melchior Lengyel, about the rise to ...
Benjamin Spock
May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998
There are only two things a child will share willingly communicable diseases and its mother's age.
Benjamin McLane Spock was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the best-sellers of all ...
Bernard Meltzer
May 2, 1916 – March 25, 1998
When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
Bernard C. Meltzer was a United States radio host for several decades. His advice call-in show, "What's Your Problem?," aired from 1967 ...
Henri Poincare
April 29, 1854 – July 17, 1912
The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science. He is often described as a ...
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
May 1881 – April 10, 1955
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the ...
Coretta Scott King
April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006
Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.
Coretta Scott King was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King ...
Robert Hall
May 2, 1764 – February 21, 1831
In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best. In matters of prudence, last thoughts are best.
The Rev. Robert Hall was an English Baptist minister.
John James Audubon
April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851
To have been torn from the study would have been as death my time was entirely occupied with art.
John James Audubon, born Jean-Jacques Audubon, was an American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive ...
Thomas Reid
April 26, 1710 – October 7, 1796
The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.
Thomas Reid FRSE was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher, a contemporary of David Hume as well as "Hume's earliest and fiercest ...
Carl Friedrich Gauss
April 30, 1777 – February 23, 1855
The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it.
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician, who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, ...
Douglas Sirk
April 26, 1897 – January 14, 1987
In the 19th century, you had bourgeois art without politics - an almost frozen idea of what beauty is.
Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; April 26, 1897 - January 14, 1987) was a Danish-German film director best known for his work in ...
Rogers Hornsby
April 27, 1896 – January 5, 1963
I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it.
Rogers Hornsby, Sr., nicknamed "The Rajah", was an American baseball infielder, manager, and coach who played 23 seasons in Major League ...
Oskar Schindler
April 28, 1908 – October 9, 1974
If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car, wouldn't you help him?
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist, German spy, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 ...
Joseph Heller
May 1923 – December 12, 1999
I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
Joseph Heller was an American satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. The title of one of his works, Catch-22, entered the ...
John McKinley
May 1780 – July 19, 1852
Technology has been, and always will be, my one true passion professionally.
John McKinley was a U.S. Senator from the state of Alabama and an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Born in Culpeper ...