Tag Archives: Otto von Bismarck

*Quotation Quotient

  (Published November 10, 2013 in the Monterey County Herald.)

1. “‘You are old, father William,’ the young man said,/  ‘And your hair has become very white;/ And yet you incessantly stand on your head/  Do you think, at your age, it is right?'”

A. William the Conqueror  

B. Lewis Carroll

C. Father Junipero Serra

2. “Nothing marks the change from the city to the country so much as the absence of grinding noises. The country is never silent. But its sounds are separate, distinct, and as it were, articulate.”

A. Henry Ward Beecher

B. Benjamin Franklin

C. Frank Sinatra

3. “Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.”

A. R. Kelly

B. C. Everett Koop

C. O. Henry

4. “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

A. Friedrich Nietzsche

B. Mary Shelley

C. Lon Chaney

5. “‘Tis an old maxim in the schools,/ That flattery’s the food of fools;/

Yet now and then your men of wit/ Will condescend to take a bit.”

A. Jonathan Swift

B. Will Rogers

C. Mae West

6. “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.” 

A. Ted Cruz

B. Thomas Jefferson

C. Steve Carell

7. “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

A. Dr. Jekyll

B. Emmett Kelly

C. Abraham Lincoln

8. “Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive. ”

A. Emily Dickinson

B. John Kenneth Galbraith

C. Michael Bloomberg

9. “We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers – we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.” 

A. Erich Maria Remarque

B. Erich Fromm

C. Eric Clapton

10. “A fool learns from his experience. A wise person learns from the experience of others.” 

A. Walter White

B. Vladimir Lenin

C. Otto von Bismarck

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

“We don’t understand life any better at forty than at twenty, but by then we realize it and admit it.” – Jules Renard

 (Renard, 1864-1910, was a French author.)