December 04

"Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend."

Omar Khayyam
(05/18/1048 – 12/04/1131)
Persian writer, mathematician

"War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men."

Cardinal Richelieu
(09/05/1585 – 12/04/1642)
French minister, clergy

"Leisure is the mother of Philosophy."

Thomas Hobbes
(04/05/1588 – 12/04/1679)
English philosopher, scholar

"Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view."

John Gay
(06/30/1685 – 12/04/1732)
English writer

"It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe."

Thomas Carlyle
(12/04/1795 – 02/05/1881)
English writer

"An empty canvas, apparently really empty, that says nothing and is without significance. Almost dull, in fact. In reality, however, [it's] crammed with thousands of undertone tensions and [is] full of expectancy. Slightly apprehensive lest it should be outraged ... It can contain anything but cannot sustain everything ... An empty canvas is a living wonder—far lovelier than certain pictures."

Wassily Kandinsky
(12/04/1866 – 12/13/1944)
Russian artist

"It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four."

Samuel Butler
(12/04/1875 – 06/18/1902)
English writer

"Almost everything serious is difficult, and everything is serious."

Rainer Maria Rilke
(12/04/1875 – 12/29/1926)
German writer

"I was about as much in demand as cancer."

Max Baer, Jr.
(12/04/1936 – )
US actor , on his post-"Beverly Hillbillies" career

"I don't think I ever went down that movie star path. I always enjoy taking a 90-degree turn from the last thing I did."

Jeff Bridges
(12/04/1949 – )
US actor (son of Lloyd Bridges, brother of Beau Bridges)

"I really don't like when things are all polished and perfect—the perfect love story and the hair is perfect."

Marisa Tomei
(12/04/1964 – )
US actor

"I love the confidence that makeup gives me."

Tyra Banks
(12/04/1973 – )
US supermodel

"There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous."

Hannah Arendt
(10/14/1906 – 12/04/1975)
German-US political scientist (LTR with Martin Heidegger)

"Music does not exist until it is performed."

Benjamin Britten
(11/22/1913 – 12/04/1976)
English composer

"The summer that I was ten—
Can it be there was only one summer that I was ten? It must
have been a long one then—"

May Swenson
(05/28/1919 – 12/04/1989)
US writer

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."

Frank Zappa
(12/21/1940 – 12/04/1993)
US musician, composer (was married to Gail)

"It is easy to be popular. It is not easy to be just."

Rose Bird
(11/02/1936 – 12/04/1999)
Chief Justice (CA)