August 19

"I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter."

Blaise Pascal
(06/19/1623 – 08/19/1662)
French mathematician

"Calamity is the test of integrity."

Samuel Richardson
(08/19/1689 – 07/04/1761)
English writer

"They were torn between two fires."

John Dent
(08/19/1790 – 03/08/1853)
US Congressman

""Father of lakes!" thy waters bend
Beyond the eagle’s utmost view,
When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send
Back to the sky its world of blue."

"Peter Parley"
(08/19/1793 – 05/09/1860)
US writer , "Lake Superior"

"Remember the Viper:—'twas close at your feet,
How you started and threw yourself into my arms;
Not a strawberry there was so ripe nor so sweet
As the lips which I kiss'd to subdue your alarms."

Robert Bloomfield
(12/03/1766 – 08/19/1823)
English writer

"It is not reason that gives us our moral orientation, it is sensitivity."

Maurice Barres
(08/19/1862 – 12/05/1923)
French writer, politician

"To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am."

Bernard M. Baruch
(08/19/1870 – 06/20/1965)
US economist

"The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall."

Orville Wright
(08/19/1871 – 01/30/1948)
US inventor (brother of Wilbur)

"I want to be your friend, for ever and ever without break of decay. When the hills are all flat and the rivers are all dry. When it lightens and thunders in winter, when it rains and snows in summer, when Heaven and Earth mingle—not till then will I part from you."

Arthur Waley
(08/19/1889 – 06/27/1966)
English sinologist

"People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it."

Ogden Nash
(08/19/1902 – 05/19/1971)
US poet

"Real rebels are rarely anything but second rate outside their rebellion; the drain of time and temper is ruinous to any other accomplishment."

James Gould Cozzens
(08/19/1903 – 08/09/1978)
US writer

"The damned thing works!"

Philo T. Farnsworth
(08/19/1906 – 03/11/1971)
US inventor (first television broadcast) , telegram, on the first successful television broadcast

"I made my money the old fashioned way. I was very nice to a wealthy relative right before he died."

Malcolm Forbes
(08/19/1919 – 02/24/1990)
US gazillionaire

"The funny thing is that everything is science fiction at one time or another."

Gene Roddenberry
(08/19/1921 – 10/24/1991)
US TV producer (Star Trek)

"The cure for mixed metaphors, I have always found, is for the patient to be obliged to draw a picture of the result."

Bernard Levin
(08/19/1928 – 08/07/2004)
English writer

"There's so much absurdity. Poverty is so absurd."

Frank McCourt
(08/19/1930 – 07/19/2009)
Irish-American writer (brother of Malachy McCourt)

"In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world."

Federico Garcia Lorca
(06/05/1898 – 08/19/1936)
Spanish writer, artist, pianist, composer

"I've still got a lot to learn about Washington. Thursday, I accidentally spent some of my own money."

Fred Thompson
(08/19/1942 – )
US Senator (TN)

"You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle."

Bill Clinton
(08/19/1946 – )
US President (42) (see all US Presidents; married to Hillary Clinton)

"You're talking to someone who really understands rock music."

Tipper Gore
(08/19/1948 – )
US second lady, PMRC founder (married to Al Gore)

"Actually, as a kid I wanted to be a tennis player, but I wasn't good enough, so I became an actor. Since then, I've just been lip-locking with gorgeous babes. So, let that be a lesson to all you little tennis players out there."

Matthew Perry
(08/19/1969 – )
US actor

"There were three things that Chico was always on—a phone, a horse, or a broad."

Groucho Marx
(10/02/1890 – 08/19/1977)
US comic, actor (Marx Brothers: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, Gummo)

"Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life."

Linus Pauling
(02/28/1901 – 08/19/1994)
US chemist