Quotes about Money - Who Said It? Quiz

Answer: Billy Wilder

Born in Austria, Billy Wilder (1906-2002) moved to the United States in 1933, following the rise of the Nazi Party in the land of his birth. He went on to become one of the most sought after film directors of his era, with hits such as "Double Indemnity" (1944), "The Lost Weekend" (1945), and, of course the huge hit "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), which he also co-wrote.

It was his 1960 movie "The Apartment", a comedy-drama which tells the story of a nondescript insurance worker (Jack Lemmon) who lends his apartment to the executives of his firm for their liaisons, that saw him win Academy Awards, not only for the best director, but also for Producer and scriptwriter as well. Billy, who spent a short period in Paris before his move to the United States, obviously wasn't overly impressed with France, its toilet paper, or its people.

Answer: Albert Einstein

Born in Germany in 1879, Albert Einstein, a theoretical physicist, died in the united States seventy-six years later. He made the above remark to his friend, Leo Mattersdorf, who was having lunch with the Einsteins one day, and added that his theory on relativity was easier to understand.

This great mind gave the world new ways to think with the following: General theory of relativity, special theory of relativity, the photoelectric effect, theory of Brownian, Einstein field equations, Bose-Einstein statistics, Bose-Einstein condensate, gravitational wave, cosmological constant, unified field theory, EPR paradox, and a host of others - none of which I understand even remotely. Winner of a very impressive number of awards, this great thinker was working on further revelations right up to his death.

He whispered something to the hospital nurse attending him just before he died, but as it was in German, which she didn't speak, we'll never know what it was. Could it have been a staggering new formula perhaps? Or was he just asking for a bedpan?

Answer: Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan (Born Terence Alan Milligan) lived from 1918 until 2002. Born in India to an Irish father and English mother, he was the chief creator, the main writer, and one of the stars of the famous British radio comedy production, "The Goon Show" which ran from 1951 until 1960. His fellow stars, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe went on to have very successful careers in their own right in movies, television and music. Spike's career took a different bent. Initially he tried various unsuccessful forays into television, but when these proved fruitless, he branched out into voice-over work, theatre, music and writing instead. He was notorious and highly successful at ad-libbing in all his live shows, dragging his dazed fellow cast members along with him, in a similar way to the later Robin Williams from the USA. In fact, his skill at that was quite phenomenal.

Yet, all the while, ongoing psychological problems took a stronger and more deadly grip on this amazing comedian. Dealing with a bi-polar disorder all his life, Spike also suffered several nervous collapses (bad ones) because of the sheer volume of work he had to put in to maintain "The Goon Show" and afterwards. He described this as the following: "I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much ... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning...It's like another person taking over, very strange...". But let's finish on a happier note. Spike's life was one quick quip after another - in life, on radio, in the theatre, during his many interviews. One is quoted for the above question, but this is my personal favourite which he made when once discussing poetry: "The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled. Twit."

Answer: Nelson Mandela

Anti-apartheid advocate, politician and philanthropist Nelson Mandela was born in the Cape Province of South Africa in 1918. The pinnacle of his life's achievement perhaps, given the very nature of all he fought against all his life - and the 27 years he spent in prison because of it - was becoming the first black President in South Africa's first fully representative election. Following this, and as a mark of this great man's character, he set about, not on dividing the country further, and not on exacting any form of revenge, but on working towards racial reconciliation in that troubled nation.

A few other brief facts only from this remarkable man's life: He was born into a royal family, he studied law at two separate universities, he was a secret member of the Communist Party, because of that and his activities in the struggle against apartheid, he was arrested, charged and imprisoned for treason, his life's work saw him awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviets, and more than 250 other awards and honours. Nelson Mandela died on the 5th December, 2013, at the age of 95, after a lifetime of struggle and achievement. The quote used in the above question is just an example of the many inspirational ones he made during his speeches, interviews and in his writing. He also said "If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness."

Answer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) who gave the world such memorable works as the 1876 "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and its 1885 follow up "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Twain had a brilliant, biting wit, and was known far and wide for his writing and lectures.

His humour had a refreshing tang to it, with the ability to creep up on one and deliver unexpected, but completely refreshing one-liners that took many a swipe at the politics and the manners of his time.

The quote used in the above question comes from his posthumous work "The Refuge of the Derelicts", written in 1905. This saying had been published by other writers of the time as well, so flip a coin as to who said it first.

Answer: Coco Chanel

Born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in France in 1883, Coco Chanel died in 1971. She was a famous fashion designer who liberated women from the world of the corset and the "ideal" figure and fashions expected of them - and gave them a freedom of choice such as they had never known before.

Her famous creations included not only dress design, but also jewellery, perfumes and handbags, plus that must-have little black dress, the Chanel suit, newer, softer more feminine materials, and of course her famous scent, Chanel No. 5. Coco never married, but had many lovers, famous and otherwise, throughout her life.

She died alone and childless in her long time room at the Ritz, where she had lived for more than thirty years. Recent revelations about this fascinating woman, who gave us the above quote, claim that Coco collaborated with the Germans during the second world war, but more in an effort to bring about a truce rather than increasing the bloodshed, and that she was on first name terms with many Nazi sympathisers from the ranks of England's nobility. Who knows if this is true or not. Coco was famous for keeping secrets.

Answer: Phineas Taylor Barnum

American showman, author, politician and philanthropist, Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891), was the man who will be forever associated with the famous Barnum and Bailey Circus. Born in Connecticut, he started out on his business life by founding a small local newspaper, before moving to the Big Smoke and the beginning of his long association with the world of entertainment. Phineas was a bit of a scam artist along with everything else, and he later purchased Scudder's American Museum which became infamous for the hoaxes it perpetrated on a gullible public. Yet it cannot be denied that they were vastly entertained by it all, loved every minute of it, and eventually forgave him for duping them. Exotic animals and women, mermaids, acrobats, yarn-spinners, fat men, magicians, giants, the famous General Tom Thumb, you name it, Phineas Barnum produced it. In between times, he toured the world with his shows, entertained all the heads of Europe, met Queen Victoria, found time to be a politician, spent all his money as quickly as he earned it, gave thousands to the poor and needy, and had one heck of a time with everything he did.

On his eventual death from a stroke in 1891, this great showman was buried in a cemetery he himself had designed. Phineas Taylor Barnum also wrote a work called "Art of Getting Money" (1880) which was filled with canny advice on how to make money, but also on how this should be utilised for the benefit of mankind. The above quote is straight from its pages, ladies and gentlemen, roll up roll up and read more for yourself!

Answer: Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1667, was an essayist, poet, pamphleteer, and Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. He died in 1745, having used his pen for a major part of his life in trying to bring the injustices and inequalities in the lives of the poor and downtrodden to the attention of a mostly uncaring public. Swift was gifted with a wonderfully black sense of humour and used irony beautifully when imparting his messages, making all he said seem perfectly logical (such as cooking young plump children of the poor to feed the starving - and giving assorted recipes for same), while all the time packing one heck of a punch into the stomach of the class systems and political structures of his age. The above starvation solution of course was from his brilliant short work, the 1729 "A Modest Proposal".

Excellent too was another famous work of his "Gulliver's Travels" (1726), which, while appearing to be nothing more than a brief escape into fantasy and a somewhat darker fairy tale, is a savage attack on the English courts and politics of his times. Swift found himself in a spot of trouble after that was published (initially anonymously), as parts of that work were anything but subtle. The above money quote was from his private correspondence to his long time friend and perhaps lover, Ester Vanhomrigh. Swift also remarked of money that "A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart".

Answer: Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was the seventh President of the United States from 1829 until 1837. Born in Carolina, Jackson was involved in political causes from a young age, having acted as a courier for the colonists during the American Revolution (1775-1783) when he was just thirteen - and being captured by the English for his pains. During this dreadful period, Jackson was almost starved to death, contacted smallpox, and then, because he refused to polish the boots of one of his captors, had his head and arm shockingly slashed by that officer's sword. That's so terrible. Never having known his father, who died three weeks before his birth, Jackson was orphaned shortly after his mother secured his release, when she died of cholera while nursing prisoners of war. On his own from that time, this future President educated himself to be able to teach school, and studied law in his free hours, eventually becoming a frontier country lawyer.

Working his way up through the class structures of his time over the next few years, Jackson found himself the owner of some 300 slaves on his various properties. He was considered a humane owner, providing them with better than average accommodation, allowing them to marry, issuing them with guns and fishing gear to augment their diet, and even paying them in coin from time to time - unheard of for the times. He did, however, if they misbehaved or were lazy, permit his slaves to be whipped on occasion. That was the way life was back then. By 1822, Jackson was a Major-General in the Tennessee militia, had a very impressive war record, and was running for politics. Elected President of the United States in 1829, he was a strong, formidable leader, a widower, dealing with secession threats from South Carolina, and in a head-on battle with his political opponents over various banking issues and their wealthy owners. Jackson saw them as corrupt, and a threat to the liberty of the common people. This led to the quote used for the above question. He was tough, he was strong, he could curse like a wharfie, he had red hair with an accompanying temper, he was honourable, he adored his wife and never remarried following her death, and he survived wars, duels, attacks and an assassination attempt which left a bullet permanently lodged in his chest. There's a copy in Wikipedia of an old daguerreotype taken shortly before Andrew Jackson's death in 1845, at the age of 78. Now there's the face of an exceptionally strong character for you - with perhaps just the hint of sorrow.

Answer: Steve Wozniak

Electronics engineer, computer programmer and co-founder of Apple Inc., Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California, in 1950. This computer genius came to a fork in the road of life in 1969, when he was expelled from his first university for hacking into their computer records, but turned his life around from that time. By 1973, he was working with Steve Jobs on chips needed for arcade games (and getting diddled by Jobs along the way) - and by 1976, both men had designed that Apple computer and set up the associated company which brought them so much fame and wealth.

Wozniak, who suffers from the medical condition prosopagnosia (face-blindness), went from this early beginning of the computer revolution to founding several other companies, finding time to teach computer skills to children along the way, performing in the occasional film and television roles, surviving a plane crash, marrying four times, collecting trunk loads of honours, being keynote speaker at important conferences around the world, lecturing at universities worldwide, and carrying out a vast amount of work with his educational and philanthropic interests. Giving us the above rather humble quote, Woz, as he is known by many, when he came to that fork in the road all that time ago, well and truly took that road less travelled.