May 11

"Children are overwhelming, supercilious, passionate, envious, inquisitive, egotistical, idle, fickle, timid, intemperate, liars and dissemblers; they laugh and weep easily, are excessive in their joys and sorrows, and that about the most trifling subjects; they bear no pain, but like to inflict it on others; already they are men."

Jean de la Bruyere
(08/16/1645 – 05/10 or 05/11/1696)
French scholar

"The atrocious crime of being a young man . . . I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny."

William Pitt the elder
(11/15/1708 – 05/11/1778)
English statesman

"Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves."

Henri Frederic Amiel
(09/27/1821 – 05/11/1881)
Swiss writer

"Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies."

Irving Berlin
(05/11/1888 – 09/22/1989)
Russian composer (shown with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters)

"The only sin is mediocrity."

Martha Graham
(05/11/1894 – 04/01/1991)
US choreographer, dancer

"Take me! I am the hallucinogenic!"

Salvador Dali
(05/11/1904 – 01/23/1989)
Spanish surrealist

"I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment, it will be behind me."

Max Reger
(03/19/1873 – 05/11/1916)
German composer , in a letter to critic Rudolph Louis

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."

Richard P. Feynman
(05/11/1918 – 02/15/1988)
US Nobelist physicist, teacher, storyteller, bongo player

"The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all."

William Dean Howells
(03/01/1837 – 05/11/1920)
US writer

"Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference."

Mort Sahl
(05/11/1927 – )
Canadian comic

"We should not introduce errors through sloppiness. We should do it carefully and systematically."

Edsger W. Dijkstra
(05/11/1930 – 08/06/2002)
Dutch computer scientist

"Never exalt people because they're in your family; never exalt people because they're your color; never exalt people because they're your kinfolk. Exalt them because they're worthy."

Louis Farrakhan
(05/11/1933 – )
US Islamic leader

"Send me out into another life. But get me back for supper."

Faith Popcorn
(05/11/1947 – )
US management consultant

I did go through a period where I was on unemployment. That was my low point: Martha Quinn on line at unemployment, hoping nobody will recognize her.

Martha Quinn
(05/11/1959 – )
US original MTV VJ (daughter of Jane Bryant Quinn)

"The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun."

John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
(01/29/1874 – 05/11/1960)
US zillionaire (son of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.; father of Nelson Rockefeller)

"Get plenty article that is pure foolishness. You have a guy come talk to you for a whole week, and him go an' write something for please the Devil."

Bob Marley
(02/06/1945 – 05/11/1981)
Jamaican singer, guitarist, reggae icon

"An editor should have a pimp for a brother so he has someone to look up to."

Gene Fowler, Jr.
(05/27/1917 – 05/11/1998)
US editor, director

"Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so."

Douglas Adams
(03/11/1952 – 05/11/2001)
English writer

"They said I was the fighter who got knocked down the most, but I also got up the most."

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