Born/Died Today. Celebs with Pithy Quotes. BornToday.com

"Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette—the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace."
John Tyler
(03/29/1790 – 01/18/1862)
US President (10), VP (10) (see all US Presidents, VPs)

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." Edwin L. Drake
(03/29/1819 – 11/09/1880)
US entrepreneur (Drillers he tried to enlist in his project to drill for oil in 1859)

"The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much." Amelia Barr
(03/29/1831 – 03/10/1919)
English-US writer

"The man who makes it the habit of his life to go to bed at nine o'clock, usually gets rich and is always reliable. Of course, going to bed does not make him rich—I merely mean that such a man will in all probability be up early in the morning and do a big day's work, so his weary bones put him to bed early. Rogues do their work at night. Honest men work by day. It's all a matter of habit, and good habits in America make any man rich. Wealth is a result of habit." John Jacob Astor
(07/17/1763 – 03/29/1848)
US gazillionaire

"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale." Robert Falcon Scott
(06/06/1868 – 03/29/1912)
English explorer , on his doomed Antarctic expedition

"Under a blazing mid-afternoon summer sky, we see the Seine flooded with sunshine . . . people are strolling, others are sitting or stretched out lazily on the bluish grass." Georges Seurat
(12/02/1859 – 03/29/1891)
French artist

"Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope." Eugene McCarthy
(03/29/1916 – 12/10/2005)
US senator (MN), presidential candidate

"There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside." Pearl Bailey
(03/29/1918 – 08/17/1990)
US singer, actor

"Capital isn't scarce; vision is." Sam Walton
(03/29/1918 – 04/05/1992)
US businessman (Wal-Mart) (died near his birthday)

"How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days." John Burroughs
(04/03/1837 – 03/29/1921)
US essayist, naturalist (died near his birthday)

"To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to possess a guiding principle. A belief of some kind. A bumper sticker if you will." Judith Guest
(03/29/1936 – )
US writer

"At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted." Eric Idle
(03/29/1943 – )
English comic, actor (Monty Python's Flying Circus)

 

"The world has gone through tremendous change recently; both nationally and internationally." John Major
(03/29/1943 – )
British Prime Minister (50) (see other British PMs)

"Reality is a narrow little house which becomes a prison to those who can't get out of it." Joyce Cary
(12/07/1888 – 03/29/1957)
English writer

"Sometimes to realize that you are well, someone must come along and hurt you." Perry Farrell
(03/29/1959 – )
US singer (Jane's Addiction)

"I am one of those who never knows the direction of my journey until I have almost arrived." Anna Louise Strong
(11/24/1885 – 03/29/1970)
US writer

"I'd like the Russian women to wear Maidenform bras. They'll look better, they'll feel better, and maybe we'll get along better." Ida Rosenthal
(01/17/1886 – 03/29/1973)
Russian dressmaker, businesswoman

"Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers—and never succeeding." Marc Chagall
(07/07/1887 – 03/29/1985)
French painter

"A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally." Lillian Day
(??/??/???? – 03/29/1991)
US writer

"My dearest colleagues seem to become metamorphosed into snarling beasts if I as much as glance at them, even if my glance is a complimentary one." Harry Ellis Dickson
(11/01/1908 – 03/29/2003)
US conductor , on conducting an orchestra in which he was also a player

"She gave you the impression that, if your imagination had to sin, it could at least congratulate itself on its impeccable taste." Alistair Cooke
(11/20/1908 – 03/29/2004)
English cultural commentator , on Greta Garbo