• Voltaire was born on 11/21/1694. “I hate women because they always know where things are.” (Candide)
• Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was born on 11/21/1863. “We make our discoveries through our mistakes: we watch one another’s success: and where there is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve.” (Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900; On the Art of Reading)
• Harold Nicolson was born on 11/21/1886. “We are all inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their acts.” (Paul Verlaine; Swinburne; King George V; The Age of Reason (1700-1789); Byron: The Last Journey)
• Ellen Glasgow died on 11/21/1945. “All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” (Virginia; In This Our Life)
• Robert Benchley died on 11/21/1945. “Behind every argument is someone’s ignorance.” (Pluck and Luck; Inside Benchley; Benchley Beside Himself)
• George Eliot was born on 11/22/1819. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” (Adam Bede; The Mill on the Floss; Middlemarch; Daniel Deronda)
• Andre Gide was born on 11/22/1869. “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” (The Fruits of the Earth; The Immoralist)
• Jack London died on 11/22/1916. “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” (The Call of the Wild; The Sea-Wolf; White Fang; The Iron Heel; The People of the Abyss)
• Aldous Huxley died on 11/22/1963. “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” (Crome Yellow; Brave New World)
• C.S. Lewis died on 11/22/1963. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” (Mere Christianity; The Screwtape Letters; The Chronicles of Narnia)

Voltaire

Robert Benchley

George Eliot

Andre Gide, 1893

Jack London, 1900

Aldous Huxley

[All images are in the Public Domain and our courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]