Quotes Quiz – Printable Version
19 multiple-choice questions with an explained answer key, ready to print.
Print the sheet (or save it as a PDF from the print window), hand it out, then mark it together using the answer page: every answer is explained. Perfect for a party, a birthday, a classroom, a care home or a team activity.
Name: ………………………………Score: ……… / 19
- Who said: 'Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.'?
- A. Albert Camus
- B. Albert Einstein
- C. Victor Hugo
- D. Charles de Gaulle
- Who said: 'Hell is other people.'?
- A. André Malraux
- B. Albert Camus
- C. Simone de Beauvoir
- D. Jean-Paul Sartre
- 'The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.' Who said this?
- A. Gandhi
- B. Nelson Mandela
- C. Martin Luther King
- D. Albert Einstein
- Who wrote: 'To be, or not to be, that is the question.'?
- A. Victor Hugo
- B. Molière
- C. Racine
- D. William Shakespeare
- 'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.' Who said this?
- A. Gustave Flaubert
- B. Marcel Proust
- C. André Gide
- D. Jules Verne
- 'He who opens a school door closes a prison.' Who said this?
- A. Victor Hugo
- B. Jean Jaurès
- C. Jules Ferry
- D. Émile Zola
- 'Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.' Who said this?
- A. Thomas Edison
- B. Nikola Tesla
- C. Louis Pasteur
- D. Albert Einstein
- 'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.' Who said this with disarming optimism?
- A. Alexander Fleming
- B. Louis Pasteur
- C. Nikola Tesla
- D. Thomas Edison
- 'A warned man is worth two.' And how much is an unwarned man worth?
- A. Half — Spanish proverb
- B. One — French proverb
- C. Three — Breton proverb
- D. Zero — Latin proverb
- 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' Who dared say this, despite knowing a thing or two himself?
- A. Niels Bohr
- B. Stephen Hawking
- C. Albert Einstein
- D. Sigmund Freud
- 'I only have one piece of advice to give you: be yourselves.' Who said this — advice that is, one might note, totally unworkable for anyone who doesn't know who they are?
- A. Montaigne
- B. Epictetus
- C. Rousseau
- D. Socrates
- 'Laughter is what makes us human.' Who said this — and had apparently never watched a video of a tickled monkey?
- A. Descartes
- B. Montaigne
- C. Aristotle
- D. Rabelais
- 'The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, the realist adjusts the sails.' Who said this?
- A. William Arthur Ward
- B. Mark Twain
- C. Victor Hugo
- D. Winston Churchill
- 'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood... teach them to long for the endless sea.' Who wrote this?
- A. Jacques-Yves Cousteau
- B. Jules Verne
- C. Herman Melville
- D. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- 'Truth is often the prettiest of stories.' Who said this?
- A. Victor Hugo
- B. Gustave Flaubert
- C. Jean Cocteau
- D. Marcel Proust
- 'You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair.' What origin does this proverb have?
- A. Chinese proverb
- B. Native American proverb
- C. German proverb
- D. Arabic proverb
- 'It is forbidden to forbid.' Which slogan appeared on the walls of Paris in May 1968?
- A. Guy Debord
- B. Jean-Paul Sartre
- C. Jean Eustache
- D. Cohn-Bendit
- 'Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.' Who said this?
- A. Henry David Thoreau
- B. Robert Louis Stevenson
- C. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- D. Mark Twain
- 'Happiness is often the only thing one can give without having it, and it is by giving it that one gains it.' Who is the author?
- A. Victor Hugo
- B. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- C. Voltaire
- D. George Sand
Answer key — Quotes Quiz
- B. Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein wrote this line in a letter to his son Eduard in 1930.
- D. Jean-Paul SartreThis famous line is from Sartre's play 'No Exit' (1944). It is often misunderstood: Sartre wasn't saying other people are bad, but that it is their gaze that traps us.
- D. Albert EinsteinThis Einstein quote goes far beyond physics. It illustrates his ethical thinking and his stand against indifference, shaped by what he experienced as a German Jew under Nazism.
- D. William ShakespeareThis is the opening of Hamlet's famous soliloquy (Act III, Scene 1), written around 1600.
- B. Marcel ProustThis beautiful line is taken from 'In Search of Lost Time', Marcel Proust's sprawling masterwork.
- A. Victor HugoVictor Hugo spoke this line during a speech on education. It remains one of the most displayed quotes in French schools, so much so that many attribute it to Jules Ferry.
- A. Thomas EdisonThomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb and holder of over 1,000 patents, liked to emphasize hard work over innate talent.
- D. Thomas EdisonEdison again! With more than 10,000 failed attempts before inventing a working light bulb, he certainly had grounds to keep things in perspective.
- B. One — French proverbThis 16th-century French proverb simply means that being warned of a danger allows you to better prepare for it.
- C. Albert EinsteinEinstein again! It must be said that for someone who revolutionized physics by imagining thought experiments from his desk, with no lab or instruments, the line had a certain legitimacy.
- A. MontaigneMontaigne, in his Essays, invites us to authenticity. A fine program.
- D. RabelaisIt is Rabelais who popularized this line in the prologue of Gargantua (1534), drawing on Aristotle.
- A. William Arthur WardAmerican author and writer William Arthur Ward is behind this sharp analysis of human psychology in the face of adversity.
- D. Antoine de Saint-ExupéryThe author of 'The Little Prince', ever the visionary, reminds us here that passion must come before technique.
- C. Jean CocteauPoet, filmmaker, and jack-of-all-trades, Cocteau loved playing with appearances.
- A. Chinese proverbA beautiful metaphor for mental health: we can't control the negative thoughts that pass through, but we can control which ones we let settle in.
- B. Jean-Paul SartreAlthough the movement was collective, Sartre was one of the most influential intellectuals to support these provocative slogans that marked a generation.
- B. Robert Louis StevensonAn invitation to patience: immediate results aren't the only measure of success.
- D. George SandGeorge Sand, that free woman and prolific writer, had a very altruistic view of happiness.