December 29

"I feel incompetent to perform duties...which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me."

Andrew Johnson
(12/29/1808 – 07/31/1875)
US President (17), VP (16) (see all US Presidents, VPs)

"No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes."

William E. Gladstone
(12/29/1809 – 05/19/1898)
British PM (30) (see other British PMs)

"Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity."

"Population, when unchecked, increases in geometrical progression of such a nature as to double itself every twenty-five years."

Thomas Malthus
(02/14/1766 – 12/29/1834)
English economist (image courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library)

"To retire is to begin to die."

Pablo Casals
(12/29/1876 – 10/22/1973)
Spanish cellist

"Better by far that you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad."

Christina Rossetti
(12/05/1830 – 12/29/1894)
English poet (sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

"I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!"

Paul McCracken
(12/29/1915 – )
US economist (and liar)

"The only bad thing about Spokane is that there's nothing to do after 10 in the morning."

Jim Murray
(12/29/1919 – 08/16/1998)
US columnist

"The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals."

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

"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems."

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

"Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you're really strangers."

Mary Tyler Moore
(12/29/1936 – )
US actor

"A hypocrite is a person who... but who isn't?"

Don Marquis
(07/29/1878 – 12/29/1937)
US writer, cartoonist (Thanks to Jim, who seems to have vanished from the Web, for the pic!)

"I've been very fortunate—you only can do what you're offered, you know?"

Jon Voight
(12/29/1938 – )
US actor (father of Angelina Jolie)

"I love to play; a stage is a safe place for me to be. It's not that way for most folks, but I'd be lost without it."

Rick Danko
(12/29/1942 – 12/10/1999)
Canadian bassist (The Band)

"Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs."

Marianne Faithfull
(12/29/1946 – )
English singer (had relationships with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Brian Jones)

"Acting is pretending that you're not pretending when you're actually pretending."

Ted Danson
(12/29/1947 – )
US actor (married to Mary Steenburgen)

"I don't have a bank account, because I don't know my mother's maiden name."

Paula Poundstone
(12/29/1959 – )
US comic

"The people sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible enough to give none."

Eden Phillpotts
(11/04/1862 – 12/29/1960)
English writer

"Jazz is the folk music of the machine age."

Paul Whiteman
(03/28/1890 – 12/29/1967)
US bandleader

"Half of this award should go to my wigs."

Jennifer Ehle
(12/29/1969 – )
US actor , on receiving a BAFTA award for "Pride and Prejudice"

"My only obligation is to keep myself and other people guessing."

Jude Law
(12/29/1972 – )
English actor

"I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance."

Harold Macmillan
(02/10/1894 – 12/29/1986)
British Prime Minister (44) (see other British PMs)

"The last time I was in Spain I got through six Jeffrey Archer novels. I must remember to take enough toilet paper next time."

Bob Monkhouse
(06/01/1928 – 12/29/2003)
English comic, writer