FREE! Click here to Join FunTrivia. Thousands of games, quizzes, and lots more!

Unfamiliar Quotations Trivia Quiz

These are obscure quotations from famous people, or, in a few cases, well-known quotes from fairly obscure people.

A multiple-choice quiz by daver852. Estimated time: 7 mins.

Author
daver852

Time
7 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
99,288

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
20

Difficulty
Very Difficult

Avg Score
8 / 20

Plays
875

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 20

1. Who said: "I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise."? Hint

Jackie Gleason

Strom Thurmond

George Burns

Chauncey Depew

NEXT>

Question 2 of 20

2. Who said: "I don't understand anything about the ballet. All I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses."? Hint

Edgar Degas

Irving Berlin

Ed Sullivan

Anton Chekov

NEXT>

Question 3 of 20

3. Who said: "You can't expect a boy to be depraved until he has been to a really good school."? Hint

Evelyn Waugh

H. H. Munro

Robert Morley

Noel Coward

NEXT>

Question 4 of 20

4. Who said: "Education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."? Hint

Bertrand Russell

Henry James

George H. W. Bush

John Lennon

NEXT>

Question 5 of 20

5. When William Blake said, "This man was hired to depress art," about whom was he speaking? Hint

George Romney

James Basire

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Thomas Gainsborough

NEXT>

Question 6 of 20

6. Who said: "Most of those who call themselves artists are, in reality, picture dealers, only they make the pictures themselves."? Hint

Jack Yeats

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Butler

Winston Churchill

NEXT>

Question 7 of 20

7. Who called the painting "The Slave Ship," by J. M. W. Turner: "A tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes."? Hint

Mark Twain

J. A. M. Whistler

John Ruskin

Emile Zola

NEXT>

Question 8 of 20

8. "Who said: "They [Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso] are, in my belief, turning out the most Godalmighty rubbish that is to be found."? Hint

Leo Stein

Ernest Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Alexander Woollcott

9. Who said: "In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased, but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."? Hint

Ethan Allen

Sigmund Freud

Voltaire

St. Augustine

NEXT>

Question 10 of 20

10. Who said: "[Americans] are three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother's side. You can take your Germany, France and Spain, roll them all together, and it wouldn't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt-kickers of all time."? Hint

John Wayne

P. J. O'Rourke

Rush Limbaugh

Al Gore

NEXT>

Question 11 of 20

11. Of whom was John Randolph speaking when he said, "A being so brilliant yet so corrupt, which, like rotten mackerel by moonlight, both shines and stinks."? Hint

Henry Clay

Martin Van Buren

Andrew Jackson

Daniel Webster

NEXT>

Question 12 of 20

12. Who said, "When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."? Hint

Ben Jonson

Jonathan Swift

Benjamin Franklin

Aphra Ben

NEXT>

Question 13 of 20

13. Who said, "A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other."? Hint

H. L. Mencken

Fred Allen

W. C. Fields

Kingsley Amis

NEXT>

Question 14 of 20

14. Who, during a tour of America in 1979, said to Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne, "The Irish -- they're all pigs!"? Hint

Margaret Thatcher

Pope John Paul II

Princess Margaret

Lech Walesa

NEXT>

Question 15 of 20

15. Who said: "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization."? Hint

Pablo Picasso

Aldous Huxley

G. K. Chesterton

Georges Clemenceau

NEXT>

Question 16 of 20

16. Who said: "Woman's virtue is man's greatest invention."? Hint

Jane Austen

Kathleen Windsor

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Cornelia Otis Skinner

NEXT>

Question 17 of 20

17. Who said: "Any man who is under 30, and who is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brain."? Hint

Winston Churchill

Albert Einstein

Charlton Heston

E.B. White

NEXT>

Question 18 of 20

18. To whom is this quotation generally attributed, though he was actually quoting someone else? "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man"?
Hint

Thomas Jefferson

Jerry Rubin

Theodore Roosevelt

George Will

NEXT>

Question 19 of 20

19. Who was Jesse Jackson talking about when he said: "I can maybe work with him, but I know who he is and what he is. There's nothing this man won't do. He's immune to shame."? Hint

Newt Gingrich

Saddam Hussein

Mayor Daly

Bill Clinton

NEXT>

Question 20 of 20

20. To whom was W. C. Fields referring when he called her "A plumber's idea of Cleopatra."? Hint

Claudette Colbert

Mae West

Marion Davies

Sophie Tucker

(Optional) Create a Free FunTrivia ID to save the points you are about to earn:

Select a User ID:

Choose a Password:

Your Email:

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Who said: "I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise."?

Answer: Chauncey Depew

Chauncey Depew (1834-1928) was a well-known politician and railroad executive. He is also credited with saying: "A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad; an optimist is one who hopes he's right." It appears that Mr. Depew's aversion to exercise paid off, as he lived to the ripe old age of 94!

2. Who said: "I don't understand anything about the ballet. All I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses."?

Answer: Anton Chekov

He did know something about theater. Among his famous plays are "The Bear," and "The Cherry Orchard."

3. Who said: "You can't expect a boy to be depraved until he has been to a really good school."?

Answer: H. H. Munro

H. H. Munro, a.k.a. "Saki," is one of my favorite writers of short stories. One of his best known stories is "The Open Window."

4. Who said: "Education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."?

Answer: Bertrand Russell

Russell was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century.

5. When William Blake said, "This man was hired to depress art," about whom was he speaking?

Answer: Sir Joshua Reynolds

Blake was a fascinating man -- brilliant poet, great artist, and slightly crazy. I tend to agree with his assessment of Reynolds as an overrated artist.

6. Who said: "Most of those who call themselves artists are, in reality, picture dealers, only they make the pictures themselves."?

Answer: Samuel Butler

Butler was a very witty man. Another favorite quote by him concerned the historian, Thomas Carlyle: "It was good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable instead of four." Don't confuse him the 17th century Samuel Butler who wrote "Hudibras."

7. Who called the painting "The Slave Ship," by J. M. W. Turner: "A tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes."?

Answer: Mark Twain

Twain had some quite definite ideas about art. See his book "The Innocents Abroad." I don't think much of Turner, either.

8. "Who said: "They [Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso] are, in my belief, turning out the most Godalmighty rubbish that is to be found."?

Answer: Leo Stein

Leo Stein was Gertrude's brother. He was also a noted art collector and critic. At least one person in the family had taste.

9. Who said: "In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased, but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."?

Answer: Ethan Allen

Although when he demanded the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga in the Revolutionary War he did so "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," this American patriot later became somewhat hostile to religion and declared himself to be "no Christian."

Answer: P. J. O'Rourke

Mr. O'Rourke is a reformed leftist radical who now writes amusing books like "Give War a Chance" and "A Parliament of Whores." He is mean-spirited, nasty, jingoistic and extremely funny. He is perhaps best known as a correspondent for "Rolling Stone" magazine.

11. Of whom was John Randolph speaking when he said, "A being so brilliant yet so corrupt, which, like rotten mackerel by moonlight, both shines and stinks."?

Answer: Henry Clay

No one, not even Hillary Clinton, ever wanted to be President more than Henry Clay, who was known as "The Great Compromiser." He and Randolph fought a duel, in which neither was injured. Some sources say that these remarks were about Edward Livingston, but the oldest sources all indicate that they were directed at Clay, and John F. Kennedy says they were, so that's good enough for me.

12. Who said, "When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."?

Answer: Jonathan Swift

John Kennedy Toole's marvelous book, "A Confederacy of Dunces," takes its title from this quotation. One of Swift's better efforts was "A Modest Proposal," in which he suggests that the English utilize surplus Irish children as a source of meat.

13. Who said, "A misogynist is a man who hates women as much as women hate each other."?

Answer: H. L. Mencken

If Mencken, author of "The American Language," were alive today, he would doubtless be on every politically-correct blacklist. He also said, "When women kiss, it always reminds me of prizefighters shaking hands."

14. Who, during a tour of America in 1979, said to Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne, "The Irish -- they're all pigs!"?

Answer: Princess Margaret

The princess had apparently never heard of the Battle of Glenmalure, where Fiach McHugh O'Byrne destroyed an English army in 1580. It was one of her many charming bon mots. Although the mayor had no comment, the remark was overheard by reporters and caused quite a stir in the Chicago press.

15. Who said: "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization."?

Answer: Georges Clemenceau

Best known as one of the "Big Four" at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I. His nickname was "The Tiger." To be called barbarous by the French is, perhaps, the ultimate insult.

16. Who said: "Woman's virtue is man's greatest invention."?

Answer: Cornelia Otis Skinner

Best known for her book "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay."

17. Who said: "Any man who is under 30, and who is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brain."?

Answer: Winston Churchill

When Lady Astor told Churchill, "If you were my husband, I'd put arsenic in your tea," the great man replied, "Yes, and if you were my wife, I'd drink it."

Answer: Thomas Jefferson

He also believed in mutilation and castration as punishments for homosexuals. And he was one of the most LIBERAL of the Founding Fathers!

Jefferson was quoting Cesare Beccaria.

19. Who was Jesse Jackson talking about when he said: "I can maybe work with him, but I know who he is and what he is. There's nothing this man won't do. He's immune to shame."?

Answer: Bill Clinton

Jesse seems to have changed his mind; he was there cheering when the former President was made an Honorary Member of the African-American Hall of Fame. But he seems to have acquired a bit of "immunity" himself.

20. To whom was W. C. Fields referring when he called her "A plumber's idea of Cleopatra."?

Answer: Mae West

W.C. Fields and Mae West couldn't stand each other. During the making of "My Little Chickadee," after appearing in one scene together, each refused to be on the set when the other was around, which forced the director to come up with some innovative editing techniques to finish the film.

Source: Author daver852

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor thejazzkickazz before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.