"Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it, and that a very severe one."

Hannah More
(02/02/1745 – 09/07/1833)
English writer

"A court is an assembly of noble and distinguished beggars."

Charles Maurice de Tallyrand-Perigord
(02/02/1754 – 05/17/1838)
French statesman

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

Havelock Ellis
(02/02/1859 – 07/08/1939)
English writer

"The 't' is silent, as in 'Harlow.'"

Dame Margot Asquith
(02/02/1864 – 07/28/1945)
English writer (wife of PM Herbert Henry Asquith, mother of Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco) , to Jean Harlow, on the pronunciation of "Margot."

Fritz Kreisler: "My fee is eighteen thousand dollars."

Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt: "That's agreeable, but I hope you understand that you should not mingle with my guests."

Kreisler: "Oh! Well, in that case, my fee is only five hundred dollars."
(02/02/1875 – 01/29/1962)
Austrian composer

"Shaw's works make me admire the magnificent tolerance and broadmindedness of the English."

James Joyce
(02/02/1882 – 01/13/1941)
Irish writer

"Find out what the other team wants to do. Then take it away from them."

George Halas
(02/02/1895 – 10/31/1983)
US football coach

"No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other."

Jascha Heifetz
(02/02/1901 – 12/10/1987)
Russia-born US violinist

"The upper classes are merely a nation's past; the middle class is its future."

Ayn Rand
(02/02/1905 – 03/06/1982)
Russia-born US writer

"No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating."

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

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

Abba Eban
(02/02/1915 – 11/17/2002)
S. Africa-born Israeli diplomat

"Do not join encounter groups. If you enjoy being made to feel inadequate, call your mother."

Liz Smith
(02/02/1923 – )
US journalist

"A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning."

James Dickey
(02/02/1923 – 01/19/1997)
US writer

"Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia."

Judith Viorst
(02/02/1931 – )
US writer

"I can always tell when the mother in law's coming to stay; the mice throw themselves on the traps."

Les Dawson
(02/02/1933 – 06/10/1993)
English comic

"We got new advice as to what motivated man to walk upright: to free his hands for masturbation."

Jane Wagner
(02/02/1935 – )
US writer (Lily Tomlin's partner)

"We were foolish and young and out of our minds. That's one of the things that is different now—we are older and out of our minds."

Graham Nash
(02/02/1942 – )
English singer (Hollies, CSNY) , on CSNY reuniting

"The American public tunes in every night hoping to see two people screwing. Obviously, we can't give them that but let's always keep it in mind."

Barry Diller
(02/02/1942 – )
US television executive

"The reason that the all-American boy prefers beauty to brains is that he can see better than he can think."

Farrah Fawcett-Majors
(02/02/1947 – )
US actor

"I wish my butt did not go sideways, but I guess I have to face that."

Christie Brinkley
(02/02/1954 – )
US model (was married to Billy Joel)

"I really like to create the sound of a choir the most. If you could see what the sound of it looks like when I shut my eyes and listen, you'd see the sound as angels spanning across the universe."

Eva Cassidy
(02/02/1963 – 11/02/1996)
US singer