Tag Archives: Bertrand Russell

July 22, 2013 · 10:45 pm

What’s Your QQ*? #330

*Quotation Quotient

  (Published July 21, 2013 in the Monterey County Herald.)

1. “Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power.”  

A. Al Capone

B. Kurt Vonnegut

C. Charlton Heston

2. “Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive.”

A. Mahatma Gandhi

B. Norman Rockwell

C. William F. Buckley, Jr.

3. “A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.”

A. Click and Clack

B. Alistair Cooke

C. Dilbert

4. “The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.”

A. Anthony Weiner

B. William Safire

C. Diana Ross

5. “Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,/ Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;/ Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,/ Lulled by the moonlight have all passed away.”

A. Stephen Foster

B. Stephen Colbert

C. Stephen King

6. “I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”

A. Elaine Benes

B. Curious George

C. Eleanor Roosevelt

7. “One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”

A. Bertrand Russell

B. Pope Francis

C. Ty Cobb

8. “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”

A. Phyllis Diller

B. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

C. Martha Stewart

9. “Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.” 

A. Kate Middleton

B. Adlai Stevenson

C. H.L. Mencken

10. “The tragedy of life is not that we die, but is rather, what dies inside a man while he lives.”

A. John Travolta

B. Henry Ford

C. Albert Schweitzer

 

Answers: 1-B, 2-C , 3-B , 4-B , 5-A , 6-C , 7-A , 8-A , 9-C , 10-C

 

Scoring:               10–QQQQ = Quote-Master   

(number correct)        8-9–QQQ = Scholar                       

                                   6-7–QQ = Literate

                                  4-5–Q = Semi-Literate

                                 0-3–No Q = Quote-Dunce




 BONUS QUOTE:

“Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.” – Edward Abbey

(Abbey, 1927-1989, wrote “The Monkey Wrench Gang” and other   radical environmental books.)

 

 

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July 2, 2013 · 8:57 pm

What’s Your QQ*? #327

*Quotation Quotient

  (Published June 30, 2013 in the Monterey County Herald.)

 1. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”

A. Russell Brand

B. Bertrand Russell

C. Bill Russell

2. “Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.'”

A. Katy Perry

B. Erich Fromm

C. Sigmund Freud

3. “He without benefit of scruples/ His fun and money soon quadruples.”

A. Ogden Nash

B. Emily Dickinson

C. Jamie Dimon

4. “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.”

A. Dianne Feinstein

B. Luana Conley

C. Albert Einstein

5. “It is part of prudence to thank an author for his book before reading it, so as to avoid the necessity of lying about it afterwards.”

A. Charlie Rose

B. George Santayana

C. Benjamin Franklin

6. “Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when to play with it and when to let it alone.”

A. H.L. Mencken

B. Pope Benedict XVI

C. Serena Williams

7. “Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.”

A. Sarah Palin

B. Eleanor Roosevelt

C. Roseanne Barr

8. “Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.”

A. Wynton Marsalis

B. James Gandolfini

C. George Bernard Shaw

9. “Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.”

A. Robert De Niro

B. Robert Benchley

C. Robert Reich

10. “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

A. Ronald Reagan

B. Nik Wallenda

C. Charles Darwin

Answers 

1-B 2-B 3-A 4-C 5-B 6-A 7-C 8-C 9-B 10-A

Scoring

10 — QQQQ = Quote-Master

8-9 — QQQ = Scholar

6-7 — QQ = Literate

4-5 — Q = Semi-Literate

0-3 — No Q = Quote-Dunce

Bonus Quote:

“To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problems of contentment.” — George E. Woodberry

(Woodberry, 1855-1930, was an American literary critic and poet.)

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June 10, 2013 · 10:49 am

What’s Your QQ*? #324

*Quotation Quotient

  (Published June 9, 2013 in the Monterey County Herald.)

 1. “Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t. ”

A. Pete Seeger

B. Socrates

C. Natty Bumpo

2. “All things are possible until they are proved impossible and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.”

A. Pearl Jam

B. Pearl S. Buck

C. Pearl Bailey

3. “You may give {your children} your love but not your thoughts./ For they have their own thoughts./  You may house their bodies but not their souls,/ For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”

A. Edgar Allan Poe

B. Khalil Gibran

C. Edmund Burke

4. “The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second half by our children.”

A. Amy Schumer

B. Hippocrates

C. Clarence Darrow

5. “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

A. Andy Kaufman

B. Thomas Jefferson

C. Winston Churchill

6. “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

A. Mark Twain

B. Pope Francis

C. Albert Einstein

7. “It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly.”

A. Rihanna

B. Bertrand Russell

C. Edward R. Murrow

8. “Hold fast to dreams,/ For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird,/ That cannot fly.”

A. Langston Hughes

B. Shel Silverstein

C. Agatha Christie

9. “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

A. Milton Friedman

B. Al Yankovic

C. J.K. Rowling

10. “A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

A. Paul McCartney

B. Henry David Thoreau

C. Alexander Pope

 

Answers: 1-A, 2-B , 3-B , 4-C , 5-C , 6-A , 7-B , 8-A , 9-C , 10-C

Scoring:               10–QQQQ = Quote-Master   

(number correct)        8-9–QQQ = Scholar                       

                                   6-7–QQ = Literate

                                  4-5–Q = Semi-Literate

                                 0-3–No Q = Quote-Dunce




 BONUS QUOTE:

 “True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that could be said.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

 (La Rochefoucauld, 1613-1680, was a French author of maxims and memoirs.)

 

 

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May 6, 2013 · 12:41 pm

What’s Your QQ*? #319

*Quotation Quotient

  (Published May 5, 2013 in the Monterey County Herald.)

1. “The Roman government gave them bread and circuses. Today we give them bread and elections.”

A. Will Durant

B. Mitt Romney

C. George Gallup

2. “In Genesis it says that it is not good for a man to be alone, but sometimes it’s a great relief.”

A. Michelle Duggar

B. John Barrymore

C. Robinson Crusoe

3. “And in the streets the children screamed/ The lovers cried and the poets dreamed/ But not a word was spoken/ The church bells all were broken/ And the three men I admire most/ The Father Son and Holy Ghost/ They caught the last train for the coast/ The day the music died.”

A. Bob Dylan

B. Don McLean

C. Buddy Holly

4. “Any kid will run any errand for you, if you ask at bedtime.”

A. Red Auerbach

B. Red Barber

C. Red Skelton

5. “Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

A. Susan B. Anthony

B. Mary J. Blige

C. Carl Sandburg

6. “There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.”

A. Anaïs Nin

B. Mitch McConnell

C. Karl Marx

7. “It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”

A. Margaret Mitchell

B. Bertrand Russell

C. Mahatma Gandhi

8. “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

A. Thomas Jefferson

B. Abbie Hoffman

C. Ted Nugent

9. “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” 

A. Yogi Berra

B. Mark Twain

C. Vladimir Nabokov

10. “No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage.”

A. Ben Jealous

B. Ralph Waldo Emerson

C. David Letterman

 

 Answers: 1-A, 2-B , 3-B , 4-C , 5-C , 6-A , 7-B , 8-A , 9-C , 10-A

 

Scoring:               10–QQQQ = Quote-Master   

(number correct)        8-9–QQQ = Scholar                       

                                   6-7–QQ = Literate

                                  4-5–Q = Semi-Literate

                                 0-3–No Q = Quote-Dunce




BONUS QUOTE:

“In every dispute between parent and child, both cannot be right, but they may be, and usually are, both wrong. It is this situation which gives family life its peculiar hysterical charm.” – Isaac Rosenfeld

 (Rosenfeld, 1918-1956, was a Jewish-American writer and member of the New York literary elite.)

 

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