Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek was born on this day, on May 8, 1899. “Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic and power adoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism.” #qotd

Israeli politician Golda Meir was born on this day, on May 3, 1898. Prime Minister 1969-74. “I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.” #qotd

British general Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was born on this day, on May 1, 1769. “I found the English regiments always in the best humour when we were well supplied with beef; the Irish when we were in the wine countries, and the Scotch when the dollars for pay came up.” #qotd

British writer Mary Wollstonecraft was born on this day, on April 27, 1759. “A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous.” #qotd

English general and politician Oliver Cromwell was born on this day, on April 25, 1599. “I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else.” #qotd

British writer Anthony Trollope was born on this day, on April 24, 1815. “Above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.” #qotd

German scientist Max Planck was born on this day, on April 23, 1858. “The first and most important quality of all scientific ways of thinking must be the clear distinction between the outer object of observation and the subjective nature of the observer.” #qotd

Max Weber was born on this day, on April 21, 1864. “The capacity to distinguish between empirical knowledge and value-judgments, and the fulfillment of the scientific duty to see the factual truth as well as the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals, is the program we adhere to.” #qotd

British economist David Ricardo was born on this day, on April 18, 1772. “The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.” #qotd

Italian scientist and artist Leonardo da Vinci was born on this day, on April 15, 1452. “It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.” #qotd

Christiaan Huygens was born on this day, on April 14, 1629. “A man of Copernicus’s opinion, that this Earth of ours is a planet, carried round and enlightened by the Sun, like the rest of the planets, cannot but sometimes think, that perhaps the rest of the planets have inhabitants too” #qotd

American politician Thomas Jefferson was born on this day, on April 13, 1743. “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour?” #qotd

American politician Henry Clay was born on this day on April 12, 1777. “The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.” (1834) #qotd

American diplomat Dean Acheson was born on this day, on April 11, 1893. US Secretary of State 1949-53. “The conclusion was unpalatable to believers in American omnipotence, to whom every goal unattained is explicable only by incompetence or treason.” #qotd

US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was born on this day on April 10, 1880. “You showed me which, of all the ‘hats’ a social worker wears, suits me best. You convinced me that man-made evils can be corrected if people can be made to care enough. I intend to make them, if it’s in my power.” #qotd

British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born this day, on April 9, 1809. The government should not “embarrass and shackle the progress of improvement tomorrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices or errors of today.” #qotd

James Mill was born on this day on April 6, 1773. “Forming opinions without evidence is one of the most immoral habits of the mind. As our opinions are the fathers of our actions, to be indifferent about the evidence of our opinions is to be indifferent about the consequences of our actions.” #qotd

English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born on this day, on April 5, 1588. “Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time.” #qotd

German leader Otto von Bismarck was born on this day, on April 1, 1815. “They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.” #qotd

American scientist Rachel Carson was born this day, on March 27, 1907. “If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.” #qotd

US judge Sandra Day O’Connor was born on this day on March 26, 1930. “It is not the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge it is not my function to develop public policy.” #qotd

British historian A. J. P. Taylor was born on this day, on March 25, 1906. “Injustice occurs in free states as in despotic states... The difference between free and unfree countries is that in the free country there are always men who will champion the unpopular cause at whatever the cost.”

Mexican politician Benito Juárez was born this day, on March 21, 1806. President of Mexico 1858-1872. “Among individuals as among nations, when there is respect, there is peace.” #qotd

Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen was born on this day, on March 20, 1828. “To live is to battle the demons in the heart as well as the brain. To write is to preside at judgement day over one’s self.” #qotd

American politician and judge Earl Warren was born on this day, on March 19, 1891. US Chief Justice 1953-69. “You sit up there, and you see the whole gamut of human nature. Even if the case being argued involves only a little fellow and $50, it involves justice. That’s what is important.” #qotd

American politician Grover Cleveland was born on this day, on March 18, 1837. President 1885-89, 1893-97. “The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital.” #qotd

American politician James Madison was born on this day, on March 16, 1751. “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” #qotd

German scientist Albert Einstein was born on this day, on March 14, 1879. “I do not carry information such as the speed of sound in my mind since it is readily available in books. The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.” #qotd

British politician Harold Wilson was born on this day, on March 11, 1916. Prime Minister 1964-70 & 1974-76. “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” #qotd

Russian pilot Yuri Gagarin was born this day, on March 9, 1934. “I saw the transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. The earth is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquoise, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.” #qotd

British scientist John Herschel was born on this day, on March 7, 1792. “We must never forget that it is principles, not phenomena, — laws not insulated independent facts, — which are the objects of inquiry to the scientist.” #qotd

French writer Cyrano de Bergerac was born on this day on March 6, 1619. “I think the Moon is a world like this one and the Earth is its moon.” My friends laughed at this. “And maybe,” I told them, “someone on the Moon is even now making fun of someone else who says that our globe is a world.” #qotd

Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator was born this day, on March 5, 1512. “When I saw Moses’ version of the Genesis of the world did not fit with Aristotle and other philosophers, I began to have doubts about the truth of all philosophers and started to investigate the secrets of nature.” #qotd

American writer Ralph Ellison was born on this day, on March 1, 1913. I am a novelist, not an activist. But I think that no one who reads what I write or who listens to my lectures can doubt that I am enlisted in the freedom movement. When I write, I am trying to make sense out of chaos.” #qotd

French writer Michel de Montaigne was born this day, on February 28, 1533. “The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will.” #qotd

American writer John Steinbeck was born this day, on February 27, 1902. “In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.” #qotd

French writer Victor Hugo was born this day, on February 26, 1802. “Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.” #qotd

American writer and diplomat Millicent Fenwick was born this day, on February 25, 1910. “Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.” #qotd

Last year, @populismblog.bsky.social asked me to reflect on my article "The Populist Zeitgeist", which gave me an opportunity to re-read and re-think the article.

American writer William Shirer was born this day, on February 23, 1904. “It is difficult to escape the consequences of a regime’s incessant propaganda. In a casual conversation with strangers, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons.” #qotd

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was born this day, on February 22, 1788. “Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us.” #qotd

American politician Barbara Jordan was born this day, on February 21, 1936. US Representative 1973-1979. “It was immigration that taught us, it does not matter where you came from, or who your parents were. What counts is who you are.” #qotd

American photographer Ansel Adams was born this day, on February 20, 1902. “Yes, people have asked why I don’t put people into my pictures of the natural scene. I respond, “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” That usually doesn’t go over at all.” #qotd

Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born on this day, on February 19, 1473. “The sun governs the family of planets revolving around it… Whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth.” #qotd

American writer Toni Morrison was born on this day, on February 18, 1931. Nobel Prize for Literature, 1993. “Know the function, the very serious function of racism … is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being.” #qotd

German writer Hans Morgenthau was born on this day, on February 17, 1904. “All nations are tempted — and few have been able to resist the power for long — to clothe their own aspirations and action in the moral purposes of the universe.” #qotd

Portuguese editorial cartoonist Zez Vaz reaches back to Tiananmen Square to call on American defiance.

American diplomat George Kennan was born on this day, on February 16, 1904. “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented.” #qotd

Susan B. Anthony was born on this day on February 15, 1820. “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.” #qotd

Frederick Douglass was born on this day, on February 14, 1818. “I have been astonished to find persons who see singing among slaves as evidence of their happiness. They are mistaken. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart.” #qotd