March 23

"Do you not know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled?"

Julius III
(09/10/1487 – 03/23/1555)
Italian Pope

"The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same."

Stendhal
(01/23/1783 – 03/23/1842)
French writer

"Education makes machines which act like men, and produces men who act like machines."

Erich Fromm
(03/23/1900 – 03/18/1980)
German psychoanalyst (died near his birthday)

"Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public likes that."

Joan Crawford
(03/23/1908 – 05/10/1977)
US actor , on Bette Davis

"Man is a genius when he is dreaming."

Akira Kurosawa
(03/23/1910 – 09/06/1998)
Japanese director

"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I'm doing."

Wernher von Braun
(03/23/1912 – 06/16/1977)
German rocket scientist

"If a man works like a horse for his money, there are a lot of girls anxious to take him down the bridal path."

Marty Allen
(03/23/1922 – )
US comic

"I will perish this forever."

Johnny Logan
(03/23/1926 – )
US baseball (Braves) shortstop , on receiving an award

"Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead."

Sir Roger Bannister
(03/23/1929 – )
English runner

"It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children."

Christina Ama Ata Aidoo
(03/23/1942 – )
Ghanaian writer

"People are strange. We're all morticians. Hey, what's on TV?"

Ric Ocasek
(03/23/1949 – )
US singer, songwriter (Cars) (married to Paulina Porizkova)

"My eyes were made to erase all that is ugly."

Raoul Dufy
(06/03/1877 – 03/23/1953)
French artist

Alexander Woollcott (signing a first edition of his book): "Ah, what is so rare as a Woollcott first edition?"
Franklin P. Adams: "A Woollcott second edition."
(11/15/1881 – 03/23/1960)
US writer

"All that anyone needs to imitate me is two soft-boiled eggs and a bedroom voice."

Peter Lorre
(06/26/1904 – 03/23/1964)
Austrian-Hungarian actor

"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."

Jason Kidd
(03/23/1972 – )
US basketball player , on joining the Dallas Mavericks

"Are you crazy? Don't you know there are people sleeping in Europe?"

Zoot Sims
(10/25/1925 – 03/23/1985)
US saxophonist , on a suggestion that he pour out half a Dexedrine before taking it

"What do you give a man who has everything? Penicillin."

Jerry Lester
(02/16/1910 – 03/23/1995)
US actor

"We must continuously discipline ourselves to remember how it felt the first moment."

Sarah Caldwell
(03/06/1924 – 03/23/2006)
US opera conductor

"I've been through it all, baby. I'm Mother Courage."

Elizabeth Taylor
(02/27/1932 – 03/23/2011)
English-US actor (was married to Richard Burton, Eddie Fisher, Michael Todd, Michael Wilding, et al)