THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”

— Viktor E. Frankl

BIRTHDAYS:

1645 August Kühnel, German composer and musician. Suite XIII a-Moll – Duo in RE

1811 Elisha Otis, American inventor (safety elevator) and founder of the Otis Elevator Company

1823 Francisco Barbieri, Spanish zarzuela opera composer. Canción de Paloma, and El Barberillo de Lavapiés: Coro de costureras, and Sinfonía sobre motivos de zarzuela

1920 P. D. James, English crime and mystery novelist (Cover Her Face, Death in Holy Orders, etc.)

1924 Leon Uris, American novelist (Exodus, Topaz, QB VII)

MISCELLANEOUS:

ATTENTION STARGAZERS. Night sky August 2026: What you can see tonight