September 12: Notable Births, with Quotes
Explore memorable and revealing quotes from public figures, past and present, who were born on September 12.
Maurice Chevalier, singer and actor (September 12, 1888–January 1, 1972)
“I think it’s not good for any man, even a young man, to chase any girl. Love is the same as success: one should meet it halfway. When it happens, you should clasp it to yourself in the middle of the road, if that’s where you find it. It should be like the coming together of the negative and positive poles of a magnet.” —Maurice Chevalier
Gilmore, Nicholas. “Maurice Chevalier on Love and Aging After Gigi.” The Saturday Evening Post, May 15, 2018, https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/05/maurice-chevalier-love-aging-gigi/.
“To me, love is only good if it is gladly shared. That is when it becomes something deliciously and irresistibly important.” —Maurice Chevalier
Gilmore, Nicholas. “Maurice Chevalier on Love and Aging After Gigi.” The Saturday Evening Post, May 15, 2018, https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/05/maurice-chevalier-love-aging-gigi/.
H.L. Mencken, journalist and satirist (September 12, 1880–January 29, 1956)
“My misfortune was that my father was relatively well-off. It’s been a curse for me all my life. Nobody would’ve believed me. They think the idea in America is that no man is worth listening to unless he’s had some experience in sweatshops.” —H.L. Mencken
Library of Congress. “Interview with H. L. Mencken (Transcript).” Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc1986022.afc1986022_ms0906/?st=gallery.
“A glance at any American city directory is sufficient to show that, despite the continued political and cultural preponderance of the original English strain, the American people have quite ceased to be authentically English in race, or even authentically British. The blood in their arteries is inordinately various and inextricably mixed, but yet not mixed enough to run a clear stream. A touch of foreignness still lingers about millions of them, even in the country of their birth.” —H.L. Mencken
Mencken, Henry L. “The Project Gutenberg EBook of The American Language, by Henry L. Mencken.” Project Gutenberg, August 1, 2013, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43376/43376-h/43376-h.htm.
“The American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of his grammar teachers can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meet the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative.” —H.L. Mencken
Mencken, Henry L. “The Project Gutenberg EBook of The American Language, by Henry L. Mencken.” Project Gutenberg, August 1, 2013, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43376/43376-h/43376-h.htm.
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