May 24

"If there be some who, though ignorant of all mathematics, dare to reprove this work, because of some passage of Scripture, which they have miserably warped to their purpose, I regard them not, and even despise their rash judgement."

Nicholas Copernicus
(02/19/1473 – 05/24/1543)
Polish astronomer

"An ugly baby is a very nasty object, and the prettiest is frightful when undressed."

Victoria
(05/24/1819 – 01/22/1901)
Queen of England

Henry Clay, House Speaker (on a narrow sidewalk): "I, sir, do not step aside for a scoundrel."
John Randolph, stepping aside: "On the other hand, I always do."
(06/02/1773 – 05/24/1833)
US congressman (VA)

"A financier is a pawnbroker with imagination."

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero
(05/24/1855 – 11/23/1934)
English playwright

"Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances."

Benjamin Cardozo
(05/24/1870 – 07/09/1938)
US Supreme Court (see other Supreme Court justices)

"The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst."

Harry Emerson Fosdick
(05/24/1878 – 10/05/1969)
US Baptist clergy

"Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation."

William Lloyd Garrison
(12/10/1805 – 05/24/1879)
US writer

"Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them."

Samuel Palmer
(01/27/1805 – 05/24/1881)
English painter

"Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores."

Elsa Maxwell
(05/24/1883 – 11/01/1963)
US writer, hostess

"You can't look forward and backward at the same time."

Coleman Young
(05/24/1918 – 11/29/1997)
US mayor (Detroit)

"Everywhere I go I see increasing evidence of people swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making."

James Anderton
(05/24/1932 – )
English police officer

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."

Joseph Brodsky
(05/24/1940 – 01/28/1996)
Russian writer

"Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges."

Bob Dylan
(05/24/1941 – )
US singer/songwriter

"I write science fiction every day at work, and each story begins with the phrase 'this software is easy to use.'"

Stephen Schlich
(05/24/1951 – )
US writer and friend of the quotekeeper

"Yes, once—many, many years ago. I thought I had made a wrong decision. Of course, it turned out that I had been right all along. But I was wrong to have thought that I was wrong."

John Foster Dulles
(02/25/1888 – 05/24/1959)
US Secretary of State

"Occasionally, you read scripts and, well, there you are on the page."

Kristin Scott Thomas
(05/24/1960 – )
English actor

"I love that people can't place me. They don't know my name. That's 'mission accomplished' in my world."

John C. Reilly
(05/24/1965 – )
US actor

"I merely took the energy it takes to paint and wrote some blues."

Duke Ellington
(04/29/1899 – 05/24/1974)
US composer

"Really, sex and laughter do go very well together, and I wondered—and I still do—which is more important."

Hermione Gingold
(12/09/1897 – 05/24/1987)
English actor

"Every dog is allowed one bite, but a different view is taken of a dog that goes on biting all the time."

Sir Harold Wilson
(03/11/1916 – 05/24/1995)
British PM (46) (see other British PMs)

"I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married, they send over a lady in a housecoat and hair curlers to burn my toast for me."

Dick Martin
(01/30/1928 – 05/24/2008)
US writer