Frank Sinatra: 10 quotes on his birthday

Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra was born on Dec. 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey, the only child of parents Natalie Della and Antonino Martino Sinatra. Sinatra’s music and film career lasted 60 years. His first break came in 1935 when he joined a local music group, The Three Flashes, which became the Hoboken Four after Sinatra joined. In the swing era, he sang with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, and moved to a solo career in 1943. He went on to produce albums for Columbia Records, Capitol Records, and for his own company, Reprise Records. Some of his greatest hits include “Come Fly with Me,”  “My Way,” and “(Theme from) New York New York.” Sinatra won 11 Grammy awards throughout his career. Besides being musically talented, Sinatra was an exceptional actor, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for “From Here to Eternity” and a nomination for Best Actor for “The Man with the Golden Arm.” He also performed in musicals such as “Pal Joey” and “Guys and Dolls.” In 1985 he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan

1. Life: One day at a time

Frank Sinatra in 1947 at the Liederkrantz Hall in New York.

"I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life.... I just go on from day to day, taking what comes."

1 of 10

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.