Sholem Aleichem, "peace be with you."

"Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor."
-Sholem Aleichem

And, "No matter how bad things get, you got to go on living, even if it kills you."
-Sholem Aleichem

It's the birthday of Sholem Aleichem, born in Pereyaslav, Ukraine (1859). He is one of the world's most prolific and widely read Yiddish-language writers. He was the son of a lumber merchant. His given name was Solomon Rabinowitz, but he adopted a pen name because many of his friends and relatives disapproved of his decision to write in Yiddish, the colloquial language of Eastern European Jews, rather than in Hebrew, the language of intellectuals and liturgy. So he chose the name Sholem Aleichem, which comes from a Hebrew greeting meaning "peace be with you."