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Quotable Death Trivia Quiz

Since it's everyone's final destination, perhaps we should see what some of the famous and infamous among us have had to say about death.

A multiple-choice quiz by LilahDeDah. Estimated time: 6 mins.

Author
LilahDeDah

Time
6 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
192,423

Updated
Jun 11 23

# Qns
15

Difficulty
Tough

Avg Score
8 / 15

Plays
3823

Awards
Top 20% Quiz

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 15

1. Ever ready with a one-liner, Josef Stalin is famous for saying,
"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a ______." Hint

front-page headline

specialty of mine

matter of no importance

statistic

NEXT>

Question 2 of 15

2. An immortal playwright's words: "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." Hint

George Bernard Shaw

Tennessee Williams

William Shakespeare

Anton Chekov

NEXT>

Question 3 of 15

3. Which WWII statesman said: "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."?
Hint

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Charles de Gaulle

Adolf Hitler

Winston Churchill

4. Complete this quotation from Tennessee Williams: "Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably _____ operation."
Hint

unpleasant

fatal

gruesome

overwhelming

NEXT>

Question 5 of 15

5. This quote is from the author of "Living, Loving and Learning". "Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, "Did you bring joy?" The second was, "Did you find joy?"
Hint

Deepak Chopra

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Leo Buscaglia

Dr. Phil McGraw

NEXT>

Question 6 of 15

6. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I _______ it." --Mark Twain Hint

approved of

regretted missing

refused to pay for

had been waiting for

NEXT>

Question 7 of 15

7. "We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so at the moment after death."
This author's psychological horror stories, among them "Young Goodman Brown", have probably caused a great many troubled dreams. Hint

Edgar Allan Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Stephen King

Guy de Maupassant

NEXT>

Question 8 of 15

8. "I am become Death, shatterer of worlds."

Hint

Kubla Khan

Harry Truman

Adolf Hitler

J. Robert Oppenheimer

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Question 9 of 15

9. "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." This quote can be found attributed to both author Matthew Arnold (from his "Requiescat"), and which noted science fiction genius? Hint

Arthur C. Clarke

H.G. Wells

Isaac Asimov

Jules Verne

NEXT>

Question 10 of 15

10. Who or what is the source of this quote?

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
Hint

Pope Pius XII

The Bible, Corinthians

Elie Wiesel

Barney the Dinosaur

NEXT>

Question 11 of 15

11. Did you read these lines while you were growing up? Who is the subject?
"(She) could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come." Hint

Anna Karenina

Bambi's Mother

Charlotte the Spider

Beth March

NEXT>

Question 12 of 15

12. This author won the Nobel Prize for Literature and wrote India's national anthem, too. His quote is:
"Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come." Hint

Rabindranath Tagore

Rudyard Kipling

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Jiddu Krishnamurti

NEXT>

Question 13 of 15

13. In William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", who says, "For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come"?
Hint

Ophelia, before committing suicide

Hamlet, in his soliloquy

Hamlet's father's ghost, about his own death

Laertes, after killing Hamlet

NEXT>

Question 14 of 15

14. Here's some useful advice from the author of "Of Human Bondage".
"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it."
Who penned this quote?
Hint

Agatha Christie

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Robert Graves

W. Somerset Maugham

NEXT>

Question 15 of 15

15. Who said - "Sex and death: two things that happen once in my lifetime. But at least after death, you aren't nauseous"? Hint

Monica Lewinsky

Oscar Wilde

Woody Allen

Dorothy Parker

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Ever ready with a one-liner, Josef Stalin is famous for saying, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a ______."

Answer: statistic

Statistic: In the 1930s, the Ukrainian peasants resisted Stalin's policy of collectivization, so "Uncle Joe" sent 25,000 young party militants to force the 10 million peasant farmers onto collective farms. There were not enough militants to deal with the peasant farmers, so the government confiscated everything edible from the Ukraine's farms: in these circumstances, peasants were unable and unwilling to produce food and the result was mass starvation. Estimates put the death toll at between seven and nine million.

This number does not include about six million other peasant farmers from elsewhere in the Soviet Union who were killed, nor the number of dissidents murdered outright. (from www.medhunters.com)

2. An immortal playwright's words: "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."

Answer: George Bernard Shaw

Shaw also left these instructions for his funeral:
"My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures."
(Source: www.worldofquotes.com)

3. Which WWII statesman said: "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."?

Answer: Winston Churchill

Although all four choices are frequently and widely quoted, this kind of wry, self-deprecating humor is unmistakably Churchillian.

Answer: fatal

Mr. Williams encountered the Grim Surgeon on February 24, 1983, at the Hotel Elys�e in New York City.

Answer: Leo Buscaglia

Inspirational speaker and writer Buscaglia died of a heart attack on June 12, 1998.

6. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I _______ it." --Mark Twain

Answer: approved of

Mark Twain: American writer and humorist, 1835-1910, white suit, cigar, pithy comments.

7. "We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so at the moment after death." This author's psychological horror stories, among them "Young Goodman Brown", have probably caused a great many troubled dreams.

Answer: Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Young Goodman Brown", (which, like many of Hawthorne's creepy tales, is set in Salem, Massachusetts) may be read online at
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/YouGoo.shtml

8. "I am become Death, shatterer of worlds."

Answer: J. Robert Oppenheimer

The American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project
quoted the ancient "Bhagavad Gita" upon witnessing the explosion of the first atomic bomb test.

Answer: Isaac Asimov

Asimov also said, "If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."
He completed his typing on April 6, 1992, from an HIV infection acquired during a blood transfusion in 1983.

10. Who or what is the source of this quote? "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

Answer: Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, writer, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has also said,

"Let us remember the heroes of Warsaw, the martyrs of Treblinka, the children of Auschwitz. They fought alone, they suffered alone, they lived alone, but they did not die alone, for something in all of us died with them."

Did you choose Pope Pius XII? Sometimes called "Hitler's Pope", his failure to denounce the Holocaust remains controversial. Was he indifferent to the plight of the Jewish people, did he do the best he could in a difficult situation, or did he fail to inform himself? History has yet to decide.

11. Did you read these lines while you were growing up? Who is the subject? "(She) could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come."

Answer: Beth March

"The Valley of the Shadow", the chapter in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" that narrates Beth March's death, has caused generations of readers to be found in tears by their parents.

12. This author won the Nobel Prize for Literature and wrote India's national anthem, too. His quote is: "Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come."

Answer: Rabindranath Tagore

Because Tagore died in 1941, he never saw his dream of an independent India fulfilled in 1947. His "Jana-Gana-Mana" ("Thou Art the Ruler of All Minds"), written originally in Bengali, was adopted in its Hindi version as the national anthem of India in 1950.

13. In William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", who says, "For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come"?

Answer: Hamlet, in his soliloquy

These lines are part of the soliloquy which begins with the play's most famous words: "To be or not to be".

"To die, to sleep-
No more-and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."
(Act III, Scene i)

14. Here's some useful advice from the author of "Of Human Bondage". "Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it." Who penned this quote?

Answer: W. Somerset Maugham

Maugham managed to heed his own advice until 1965, when he was over ninety years old.

15. Who said - "Sex and death: two things that happen once in my lifetime. But at least after death, you aren't nauseous"?

Answer: Woody Allen

That quote was from 1973s "Sleeper". Allen has also said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." Sounds good to me! Let's all get out there and LIVE!

Source: Author LilahDeDah

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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