July 11

"Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order."

John Quincy Adams
(07/11/1767 – 02/23/1848)
US President (6) (son of John Adams and Abigail Smith Adams, father of Charles Francis Adams; see all US Presidents)

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal."

Alexander Hamilton
(01/11/1755 – 07/11/1804)
US founding father (image courtesy of the fantastic Bridgeman Art Library)

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half."

John Wanamaker
(07/11/1838 – 12/12/1922)
US merchant

"One finger in the throat and one in the rectum makes a good diagnostician."

Sir William Osler
(07/11/1849 – 12/29/1919)
Canadian physician

"My work is done, why wait?"

George Eastman
(07/11/1854 – 03/14/1942)
US inventor , suicide note

Mother: "It's broccoli, dear."
Child: "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."

E. B. White
(07/11/1899 – 10/01/1985)
US writer, grammarian

"Life is, I think, a blunder and a shame."

William Ernest Henley
(08/23/1849 – 07/11/1903)
English writer

"Girls have an unfair advantage over men: if they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb."

Yul Brynner
(07/11/1920 – 10/10/1985)
Russian actor

"True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today."

George Gershwin
(09/26/1898 – 07/11/1937)
US composer (brother of Ira)

"I refuse to slap some stupid words on the stupid paper just so we have a stupid song finished."

Suzanne Vega
(07/11/1959 – )
US singer, songwriter

"The world does not owe men a living, but business, if it is to fulfill its ideal, owes men an opportunity to earn a living."

Owen D. Young
(10/27/1874 – 07/11/1962)
US businessman

"Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage."

Delmore Schwartz
(12/08/1913 – 07/11/1966)
US writer

"Don't worry about it, son. I just like to shake 'em up."

John W. Campbell, Jr.
(06/08/1910 – 07/11/1971)
US writer

"One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless."

Harold Rosenberg
(02/02/1906 – 07/11/1978)
US writer

"Money costs too much."

Ross MacDonald
(12/13/1915 – 07/11/1983)
US writer

"Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult."

Sir Laurence Olivier
(05/22/1907 – 07/11/1989)
English actor (shown with Marilyn Monroe)

"In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion."

Robert Runcie
(10/02/1921 – 07/11/2000)
English Archbishop

"Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor."

"Lady Bird" Johnson
(12/22/1912 – 07/11/2007)
US First Lady (36) (was married to Lyndon Johnson; see other US First Ladies)