Born/Died Today with Pithy Quotes

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"Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order."
John Quincy Adams
(07/11/1767 – 02/23/1848)
US President (6) (son of John Adams and Abigail Smith Adams, father of Charles Francis Adams; see all US Presidents) 

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal."
Alexander Hamilton
(01/11/1755 – 07/11/1804)
US founding father (image courtesy of the fantastic Bridgeman Art Library) 

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half."
John Wanamaker
(07/11/1838 – 12/12/1922)
US merchant 

"One finger in the throat and one in the rectum makes a good diagnostician."
Sir William Osler
(07/11/1849 – 12/29/1919)
Canadian physician 

Mother: "It's broccoli, dear."
Child: "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."
E. B. White
(07/11/1899 – 10/01/1985)
US writer, grammarian 

"Life is, I think, a blunder and a shame."
William Ernest Henley
(08/23/1849 – 07/11/1903)
English writer 

"Girls have an unfair advantage over men: if they can't get what they want by being smart, they can get it by being dumb."
Yul Brynner
(07/11/1920 – 10/10/1985)
Russian actor 

"True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today."
George Gershwin
(09/26/1898 – 07/11/1937)
US composer (brother of Ira) 

"I refuse to slap some stupid words on the stupid paper just so we have a stupid song finished."
Suzanne Vega
(07/11/1959 – )
US singer, songwriter 

"The world does not owe men a living, but business, if it is to fulfill its ideal, owes men an opportunity to earn a living."
Owen D. Young
(10/27/1874 – 07/11/1962)
US businessman 

"Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage."
Delmore Schwartz
(12/08/1913 – 07/11/1966)
US writer 

"Don't worry about it, son. I just like to shake 'em up."
John W. Campbell, Jr.
(06/08/1910 – 07/11/1971)
US writer 

"One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless."
Harold Rosenberg
(02/02/1906 – 07/11/1978)
US writer 

"Money costs too much."
Ross MacDonald
(12/13/1915 – 07/11/1983)
US writer 

"Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult."
Sir Laurence Olivier
(05/22/1907 – 07/11/1989)
English actor (shown with Marilyn Monroe) 

"In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion."
Robert Runcie
(10/02/1921 – 07/11/2000)
English Archbishop 

"Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor."
"Lady Bird" Johnson
(12/22/1912 – 07/11/2007)
US First Lady (36) (was married to Lyndon Johnson; see other US First Ladies) 

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