January 04

"The turgid style of Johnson, the purple glare of Gibbon, and even the studied and thickset metaphors of Junius are all equally unnatural, and should not be admitted into our company."

Benjamin Rush
(01/04/1746 – 04/19/1813)
US physician, statesman (Portrait from Bridgeman Art Library)

"An original something, dear maid, you would wish me to write; but how shall I begin?
For I'm sure I have not original in me, Excepting Original Sin."

Thomas Campbell
(02/01/1763 – 01/04/1854)
Irish theologian

"Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and lies down frequently to rest."

Max Eastman
(01/04/1883 – 03/25/1969)
US writer

"Sex appeal is the keynote of our civilization."

Henri Bergson
(10/18/1865 – 01/04/1941)
French philosopher

"In case it is one of mine."

Augustus Edwin John
(01/04/1878 – 10/31/1961)
Welsh artist , patting the head of a child in Chelsea as he passed by

"I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times."

Everett Dirksen
(01/04/1896 – 09/07/1969)
US senator (IL)

"The opportunity for brotherhood presents itself every time you meet a human being."

Jane Wyman
(01/04/1914 – 09/10/2007)
US actor (was married to Ronald Reagan; mother of Maureen Reagan and Michael Reagan)

"A broken heart is what makes life so wonderful five years later, when you see the guy in an elevator and he is fat and smoking a cigar and saying 'long time, no see.'"

Phyllis Battelle
(01/04/1922 – )
US journalist

"Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck."

Don Shula
(01/04/1930 – )
US football coach

"There is so much hate among people, so much contempt inside people who'd like you to think they're moral, that they have to hire prizefighters to do their hating for them. And we do. We get into a ring and act out other people's hates."

Floyd Patterson
(01/04/1935 – 05/11/2006)
US boxer

"He made me think differently ... besides his smile makes my tummy warm."

Dyan Cannon
(01/04/1937 – )
US actor (was married to Cary Grant) , on Albert Einstein

"I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there."

Maureen Reagan
(01/04/1941 – 08/08/2001)
US first family member (daughter of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman; sister of Michael Reagan; step-daughter of Nancy Reagan)

"Since every record surely contains something offensive to someone, sticker them all. Make this as meaningless as the bar code."

Michael Stipe
(01/04/1960 – )
US singer , on warning labels for music

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

Albert Camus
(11/07/1913 – 01/04/1960)
French existential writer

"Yes, I suppose some editors are failed writers—but so are most writers."

T. S. Eliot
(09/26/1888 – 01/04/1965)
US writer

"We live in stirring times—tea-stirring times."

Christopher Isherwood
(08/26/1904 – 01/04/1986)
English writer

"She was every bandleader's dream, a vocalist who had natural talent, a keen regard for the lyrics, and an attractive appearance."

Les Brown
(03/14/1912 – 01/04/2001)
US bandleader , on Doris Day

"Stories ought not to be just little bits of fantasy that are used to while away an idle hour; from the beginning of the human race stories have been used—by priests, by bards, by medicine men—as magic instruments of healing, of teaching, as a means of helping people come to terms with the fact that they continually have to face insoluble problems and unbearable realities."

Joan Delano Aiken
(09/04/1924 – 01/04/2004)
English writer

"Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny."

Guy Davenport
(11/23/1927 – 01/04/2005)
US writer, educator

"When you argue with your inferiors, you convince them of only one thing: they are as clever as you."

Irving Layton
(03/12/1912 – 01/04/2006)
Romanian-Canadian writer