<= Previous | January Issues Index | Next =>
Quotes of the Day for 5 January 2004 - Shaving

King Camp Gillette was born at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin on this day 1855. His father was a tinkerer and inventor, so when Gillette started traveling as a salesman he also started improving the products he sold and held four patents by 1890. He used an early safety razor, as a straight razor was hardly safe for shaving on a moving train, but sharpening the blades was difficult and the razor ended up useless. He spent six years searching for a steel that could be made into disposable razor blades, and put it on the market in 1903. He lost money on the razors, in fact for some years they were given away, but made a fortune on the blades. His heirs make nothing off me, scraping the hair off my face with a sharp blade seems barbaric and I dropped habit in 1975.

There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
     - George Gordon Noel Byron, 1788 - 1824

Those who talk on the razor-edge of double-meanings pluck the rarest blooms from the precipice on either side.
     - Logan Pearsall Smith, 1865 - 1946

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
     - Alfred Edward Housman, 1859 - 1936

If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.
     - Benjamin Franklin, 1706 - 1790

Commuter: one who spends his life
  In riding to and from his wife;
A man who shaves and takes a train,
  And then rides back to shave again.
     - Elwyn Brooks White, 1899 - 1985

Would you like to see quotes like these in your mail tomorrow morning? Our 10,000 loyal subscribers hate to miss a day, perhaps you should sign up now! No cost or obligation, just be open to the enlightenment waiting for you among our 22,500+ quotes.