206 Fun Facts About Who Said It? Famous Quotes

Who said 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'?

Neil Armstrong said it as he stepped onto the Moon in July 1969; he insisted he had meant to say 'one small step for a man', but the 'a' cannot be heard on the recording.

Which US president declared 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'?

Franklin D. Roosevelt said it in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933; thirty-six hours later he suspended all banking in the country, a 'bank holiday' meant to halt a wave of bank failures.

Who urged Americans to 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country'?

John F. Kennedy said it in his inaugural address on January 20, 1961; weeks later, on March 1, he signed the order creating the Peace Corps to send American volunteers abroad.

Which US president popularised the saying 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far'?

Theodore Roosevelt called it a West African proverb when he quoted it in a letter in January 1900, before he was president, but no earlier trace of any such proverb has been found.

Who pledged 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat'?

Winston Churchill said it to the House of Commons on May 13, 1940, three days after becoming prime minister; MPs then backed his new government by 381 votes to none.

Which prime minister told a 1980 party conference 'The lady's not for turning'?

Margaret Thatcher said 'The lady's not for turning' at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton on October 10, 1980, refusing to reverse her economic policy.

Which speech opens 'Four score and seven years ago'?

The Gettysburg Address opens with those words; Abraham Lincoln spoke for about two minutes at the 1863 cemetery dedication, after the orator Edward Everett had held the podium for two hours.

Who delivered the 'I Have a Dream' speech in 1963?

Martin Luther King Jr. left his prepared text for the 'dream' passage after the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out to him to tell the crowd about the dream.

Which Revolutionary-era orator is famous for the cry 'Give me liberty, or give me death!'?

Patrick Henry is said to have closed a 1775 speech to the Second Virginia Convention with the cry, urging the colony to arm because, as he put it, war with Britain was already inevitable.

Whose reputed last words were 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country'?

Nathan Hale, a Continental Army spy, is reputed to have said it before the British hanged him in New York on September 22, 1776.

Which space mission's crew radioed 'Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here'?

Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert radioed it after an oxygen tank exploded on the way to the Moon in April 1970; the 1995 film about the flight changed it to 'Houston, we have a problem'.

Which US president demanded 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'?

Ronald Reagan said it at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on June 12, 1987; the State Department and the National Security Council had tried to strike the line as needlessly provocative, but he kept it in.

Which US president declared 'Our long national nightmare is over' upon being sworn in?

Gerald Ford said 'Our long national nightmare is over' moments after taking the oath on August 9, 1974, within the hour of Richard Nixon's resignation.

Which US president said 'The chief business of the American people is business'?

Calvin Coolidge said it to newspaper editors in January 1925, then added that wealth was not the chief end of existence and that 'the chief ideal of the American people is idealism'.

The Latin boast 'Veni, vidi, vici' - 'I came, I saw, I conquered' - is attributed to whom?

Julius Caesar is credited with the boast after routing Pharnaces II of Pontus at Zela in 47 BC, a battle Suetonius says he won within five days of arriving and four hours of sighting the enemy.

Which French philosopher wrote 'I think, therefore I am' (cogito, ergo sum)?

Rene Descartes first published it in French, as 'je pense, donc je suis', in his Discourse on the Method of 1637; the Latin 'cogito, ergo sum' came later, in his Principles of Philosophy.

Who confessed 'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants'?

Isaac Newton wrote it in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, but the image was five centuries old by then: John of Salisbury had used it in his Metalogicon of 1159.

The saying 'I know that I know nothing' is associated with which ancient Greek philosopher?

Socrates never quite says it in Plato: the saying condenses the Apology, where he calls himself wiser than a man reputed wise only because 'I neither know nor think that I know'.

The famous exclamation 'Eureka!' - 'I have found it!' - is credited to which ancient thinker?

Archimedes, by Vitruvius's account, leapt from his bath and ran home naked shouting it, having seen that the water he displaced could show whether King Hiero's crown was pure gold.

Which abolitionist gave the 1851 speech remembered as 'Ain't I a Woman'?

Sojourner Truth gave the speech in Akron, Ohio; the refrain comes from the account Frances Gage published twelve years later, which gave the New York-born Truth a Southern dialect.

Which baseball legend is credited with the saying 'It ain't over till it's over'?

Yogi Berra is said to have coined it in 1973 as manager of the New York Mets, who were near the bottom of their division that summer and went on to win it, along with the National League pennant.

Which Soviet cosmonaut cried 'Poyekhali!' - 'Let\'s go!' - as he launched into space in 1961?

Yuri Gagarin said it as Vostok 1 lifted off on April 12, 1961; after a single orbit he ejected from the capsule and came down under his own parachute.

Which movie line did the American Film Institute rank number one?

'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' is Rhett Butler's parting shot to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939); in Margaret Mitchell's novel he says only 'My dear, I don't give a damn'.

Which action star turned 'I'll be back' into his signature catchphrase?

Arnold Schwarzenegger first said 'I'll be back' as the cyborg in The Terminator (1984), then worked the line or a variant of it into many of his later films.

The valediction 'May the Force be with you' comes from which film franchise?

Star Wars made 'May the Force be with you' its farewell from the first film in 1977; the pun 'May the Fourth be with you' has since turned May 4 into Star Wars Day.

Which US president kept a sign reading 'The buck stops here' on his Oval Office desk?

Harry Truman was sent the sign in 1945 by a friend who had seen one like it at a federal reformatory in Oklahoma, where his copy was made; its reverse reads 'I'm from Missouri'.

'Let them eat cake' is traditionally but wrongly attributed to whom?

Marie Antoinette almost certainly never said it: Rousseau told the story of 'a great princess' in his Confessions, written when she was still a child in Austria.

'I will defend to the death your right to say it' is a line wrongly credited to which philosopher?

Voltaire never wrote it: Evelyn Beatrice Hall coined the sentence in her 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire to sum up his attitude, and readers took it for a quotation.

Which Sherlock Holmes catchphrase comes from later writers rather than Arthur Conan Doyle's own stories?

'Elementary, my dear Watson' never appears in Doyle's canon; Holmes says 'Elementary' in The Crooked Man and 'my dear Watson' often, but never together.

Which US admiral is credited with 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!' at Mobile Bay?

David Farragut is credited with the order at the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, as his Union fleet pushed past Confederate mines, then called torpedoes.

Which Greek philosopher wrote that 'man is by nature a political animal'?

Aristotle makes the claim in his Politics, arguing that humans alone have speech to weigh right and wrong, so that anyone able to live without a city must be 'either a beast or a god'.

Who told the UN in 2013 that 'one book and one pen can change the world'?

Malala Yousafzai said it at the United Nations in New York on July 12, 2013, her 16th birthday, in her first major speech after the Taliban shot her.

Whose 1964 dock speech ended 'an ideal for which I am prepared to die'?

Nelson Mandela closed his statement from the dock at the Rivonia Trial on April 20, 1964, with those words; he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Who told the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit 'How dare you'?

Greta Thunberg said 'How dare you' to world leaders at the UN summit in New York in September 2019, having crossed the Atlantic on a racing yacht rather than fly.

The German pastor Martin Niemöller's postwar confession of his silence under the Nazis opens with which words?

First they came for the socialists, the confession begins; Niemöller, an early supporter of Hitler who spent 1937 to 1945 in Nazi prisons and camps, blamed himself for not speaking out.

Which actor delivers the toast 'Here's looking at you, kid' in Casablanca?

Humphrey Bogart says it as the nightclub owner Rick; the toast was missing from the draft scripts and was probably the actor's own invention.

Which film gave us the catchphrase 'Hasta la vista, baby'?

Terminator 2 (1991) has young John Connor teach the phrase to his cyborg protector, who repeats it before shooting the frozen T-1000.

Which film closes with the line 'After all, tomorrow is another day'?

Gone with the Wind (1939) ends with Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara resolving to win Rhett back: 'After all, tomorrow is another day!'

Which candidate's presidential campaign rallied around the refrain 'Yes we can'?

Barack Obama made 'Yes we can' the refrain of his 2008 campaign; it rang through the speech in which he conceded an early primary to Hillary Clinton, later set to music by will.i.am.

Which US president told Congress 'The world must be made safe for democracy'?

Woodrow Wilson said 'The world must be made safe for democracy' in his April 2, 1917 address asking Congress to declare war on Germany.

Which film features the rant 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore'?

Network (1976) has Peter Finch's news anchor Howard Beale urge viewers to shout it from their windows; Finch died before the Oscars and became the first posthumous winner of Best Actor.

Which character says 'I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse' of a Hollywood producer in The Godfather?

Vito Corleone says it to his godson Johnny Fontane, who has been refused a film role; the producer changes his mind after waking beside the severed head of his prize racehorse.

Which actress delivers 'Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore' in The Wizard of Oz?

Judy Garland plays Dorothy; Shirley Temple, then Hollywood's biggest child star, was reportedly considered for the part.

Which actor delivers 'Go ahead, make my day' as Harry Callahan in Sudden Impact?

Clint Eastwood says it as Harry Callahan in Sudden Impact (1983), daring the last robber left standing after a diner shootout to give him an excuse to fire; the AFI ranked it sixth.

Which film character snarls 'You talkin' to me?' at his own reflection?

Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro's New York cabbie in Taxi Driver (1976), says it while practising his draw, in a scene De Niro improvised.

Which character delivers 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning' in Apocalypse Now?

Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, Robert Duvall's surf-mad cavalry commander, says it on a beach he has just had bombed, having ordered his men to 'surf or fight' under fire in Apocalypse Now (1979).

Which actor shouts 'There's no crying in baseball!' as a team manager in A League of Their Own?

Tom Hanks plays Jimmy Dugan, a faded slugger managing a women's team, who shouts it at a player in tears over a bad throw; the umpire then throws him out of the game.

Who famously says 'Rosebud' in the 1941 Orson Welles film?

Charles Foster Kane, played by Orson Welles, utters 'Rosebud' as he dies in Citizen Kane (1941), and the search for its meaning drives the film.

Who tells the census-taker story with 'a nice Chianti' in The Silence of the Lambs?

Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins, tells Clarice he ate a census taker's liver 'with some fava beans and a nice Chianti'; the AFI ranked the line 21st.

Which actor first introduced himself on the big screen as 'Bond, James Bond'?

Sean Connery says it at a card table in Dr. No, echoing a fellow player who has just given her own name as 'Trench, Sylvia Trench'.

Which actor first demands 'Show me the money!' in Jerry Maguire?

Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Rod Tidwell, an Arizona Cardinals receiver unhappy with his pay who puts his agent through a long phone tirade; the role won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Which character shouts 'You can't handle the truth!' in A Few Good Men?

Col. Nathan R. Jessep, the base commander played by Jack Nicholson, shouts it on the witness stand, then admits in his fury that he ordered the fatal 'code red' and is arrested.

Who says 'You're gonna need a bigger boat' in Jaws?

Chief Martin Brody, played by Roy Scheider, says it after first seeing the shark in Jaws (1975); the AFI ranked the line 35th.

Which baseball star told a farewell crowd 'Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth'?

Lou Gehrig said it at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, two weeks after ALS forced him to retire from a career that included 2,130 consecutive games; the disease killed him two years later.

Who says 'My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates'?

Forrest Gump says it to a nurse beside him on a bus-stop bench in Savannah, Georgia, where he goes on to tell his life story to a string of strangers; the AFI ranked the line 40th.

Which child actor whispers 'I see dead people' in The Sixth Sense?

Haley Joel Osment plays Cole Sear, a nine-year-old who confides the secret to his psychologist; the performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Which character declares 'Greed, for lack of a better word, is good' in Wall Street?

Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, says it to Teldar Paper shareholders in Wall Street (1987); the AFI ranked the line 57th.

Who advises 'Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer' in The Godfather Part II?

Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, says it to Frank Pentangeli in The Godfather Part II (1974), calling it a lesson his father taught him; the AFI ranked the line 58th.

Which character says 'Say hello to my little friend!' in Scarface?

Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino, shouts it during the final shootout in Scarface (1983); the AFI ranked the line 61st.

Which Dr. Strangelove character protests, 'Gentlemen, you can't fight in here'?

President Merkin Muffley, one of three roles Peter Sellers plays in the film, says 'Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!'; the AFI ranked the line 64th.

Which actor snarls 'Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape' in Planet of the Apes?

Charlton Heston plays Taylor, an astronaut shot in the throat and held captive on a world where apes treat mute humans as beasts; he snarls the line the moment his voice returns.

Who says 'Here's Johnny!' in The Shining?

Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, says it through the bathroom door he is chopping down with an axe in The Shining (1980), echoing Ed McMahon's nightly introduction of Johnny Carson.

Which character says 'Soylent Green is people!'?

Detective Robert Thorn shouts it as Soylent Green (1973) ends, having followed the dead from a euthanasia centre to the plant where their bodies are processed into food wafers.

Who says 'Open the pod bay doors, HAL' in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Dave Bowman says it from his pod after HAL, the ship's computer, shuts him out; refused entry, he blasts himself in through the emergency airlock without a helmet.

In Airplane!, which actor deadpans 'I am serious, and don't call me Shirley'?

Leslie Nielsen says it as Dr. Rumack, answering 'Surely you can't be serious'; he was known as a dramatic actor until this film remade him as a deadpan comic.

Who shouts 'Yo, Adrian!' in the 1976 boxing film?

Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, shouts it into a television camera when a reporter asks for a comment, as his girlfriend watches at home; 'Yo, Adrian, I did it!' is how Rocky II ends.

Which character says 'My precious' in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers?

Gollum, performed by Andy Serkis, hisses 'My precious' at the One Ring, which twisted his body and mind over the centuries he owned it; the AFI ranked the line 85th.

Which actor urges his students to 'seize the day' in Dead Poets Society?

Robin Williams plays John Keating, an English teacher who whispers 'Carpe diem' to his class as they study photographs of former pupils; the AFI ranked the speech 95th.

Which character says 'Nobody puts Baby in a corner' in Dirty Dancing?

Johnny Castle, played by Patrick Swayze, says it as he returns for the season's last show, then leads her on stage for the dance they practised all summer in Dirty Dancing (1987).

Which director shouted 'I'm the king of the world!' while accepting an Oscar for Titanic?

James Cameron borrowed the cry that Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack gives from the ship's prow when he accepted Best Director in March 1998, on a night Titanic won 11 Academy Awards.

Which actress tells Tom Cruise 'You had me at hello' in Jerry Maguire?

Renée Zellweger plays Dorothy Boyd, who cuts short Jerry's long speech begging her to take him back with 'Shut up... you had me at hello'; the AFI ranked it 52nd.

Who really says 'Play it, Sam' and asks for 'As Time Goes By' in Casablanca?

Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman, says it to the pianist on entering Rick's café; 'Play it again, Sam', the line everyone quotes, is never spoken in the film.

Which character orders 'Round up the usual suspects' in Casablanca?

Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains, orders 'Round up the usual suspects' after Rick shoots Major Strasser at the airport in Casablanca (1942); the AFI ranked it 32nd.

Who says 'I'll have what she's having' in When Harry Met Sally...?

An older deli customer, played by director Rob Reiner's mother Estelle, says it to a waiter after Sally's fake orgasm at Katz's Deli; the AFI ranked the line 33rd.

Which character keeps crying 'Inconceivable!' in The Princess Bride?

Vizzini, the Sicilian played by Wallace Shawn, says 'Inconceivable!' throughout The Princess Bride (1987), prompting Inigo's 'I do not think it means what you think it means.'

Which actor played Scotty and titled his memoir 'Beam Me Up, Scotty'?

James Doohan played Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott on Star Trek and took the catchphrase as the title of his 1996 memoir; an engineering school gave him an honorary degree after students said Scotty inspired them.

Which scientist is said to have muttered 'And yet it moves' after recanting to the Inquisition?

Galileo Galilei is said to have muttered 'Eppur si muove' after his 1633 recantation, but the story first appears in print in 1757 and is likely apocryphal.

Which Apollo flight director titled his memoir 'Failure Is Not an Option'?

Gene Kranz took his memoir's title from the vow Ed Harris makes as him in a 1995 film; by a fellow flight controller's account the line was written for the screen, and Kranz never said it during the crisis.

Who wrote 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'?

Lord Acton wrote it in an 1887 letter to the historian Mandell Creighton, refusing to judge popes and kings more gently than other men; he added, 'Great men are almost always bad men.'

Which Latin phrase is a Roman general said to have uttered on crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC?

Alea iacta est, 'the die is cast', is the usual form of the line; Suetonius gives it as iacta alea est, while Plutarch says the general called it out in Greek.

Which Spartan king reputedly replied 'Molon labe' ('come and take them') to a Persian surrender demand?

Leonidas I is said to have written 'Molon labe' back when Xerxes demanded that the Greeks hand over their arms before Thermopylae in 480 BC; Plutarch records the exchange in his Sayings of the Spartans.

Who shouted 'Sic semper tyrannis' after firing the shot at Ford's Theatre in 1865?

John Wilkes Booth shouted 'Sic semper tyrannis', Virginia's state motto, meaning 'thus always to tyrants', after shooting the president; he fled, and soldiers tracked him down and killed him 12 days later.

General John Stark's 1809 toast gave which US state its motto, 'Live free or die'?

New Hampshire took 'Live Free or Die' as its motto in 1945 from a toast General John Stark sent to Bennington veterans in 1809, when poor health kept him from their reunion; it went on, 'Death is not the worst of evils.'

What one-word reply did US General Anthony McAuliffe send to a German surrender demand at Bastogne in 1944?

Nuts! was the whole of the typed reply Anthony McAuliffe sent on December 22, 1944; when the puzzled German officers asked what it meant, the colonel delivering it told them, 'Go to hell.'

Which boy asks 'Please, sir, I want some more' in a Dickens novel?

Oliver Twist asks for more gruel because the starving workhouse boys drew lots and he lost; the horrified board then offers five pounds to anyone who will take him off the parish's hands.

Which British PM declared 'peace for our time' after the 1938 Munich Agreement?

Neville Chamberlain said 'peace for our time' at 10 Downing Street on September 30, 1938; Britain was at war with Germany within a year.

Who pledged 'Read my lips: no new taxes' at the 1988 Republican convention?

George H. W. Bush made the pledge accepting the nomination on August 18, 1988; speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote the line, and his 1990 tax increase turned it against him.

Which president told Congress in 1965 'And we shall overcome' while urging a voting rights bill?

Lyndon B. Johnson borrowed the civil rights movement's anthem in his televised address to Congress on March 15, 1965, days after police attacked voting-rights marchers at Selma.

Which poet wrote 'Do not go gentle into that good night'?

Dylan Thomas addresses the villanelle to his own father, pleading with him in the final stanza to rage against death rather than slip away quietly.

Who wrote 'The report of my death was an exaggeration' in 1897?

Mark Twain wrote the line in a May 1897 note to a reporter in London, explaining that rumours of his illness grew out of a cousin's; the familiar 'greatly exaggerated' wording is a later misquote.

Who wrote 'These are the times that try men's souls' in December 1776?

Thomas Paine opened the first of his American Crisis pamphlets with the line on December 19, 1776, a week before the Delaware crossing; Washington is said to have had it read to his army before the attack on Trenton.

Which author wrote 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'?

George Orwell has the pigs wipe the Seven Commandments off the barn wall in Animal Farm (1945), leaving only this one; the original rule had been simply 'All animals are equal'.

Which poet opened 'The Road Not Taken' with 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood'?

Robert Frost sent the poem in 1915 to an English friend it gently teased, a man who agonised over which path to take on their walks and then regretted his choice; the friend took it to heart.

Who gave 'The Ballot or the Bullet' speech in 1964?

Malcolm X gave 'The Ballot or the Bullet' in Cleveland on April 3, 1964, weeks after leaving the Nation of Islam; he urged Black Americans to vote, and warned that arms might follow if equality stayed out of reach.

Which British PM told South Africa's parliament in 1960 that a 'wind of change' was blowing through the continent?

Harold Macmillan said it in Cape Town on February 3, 1960, signalling that his Conservative government would no longer stand in the way of independence for Britain's African colonies.

Which fast-food chain's 1984 ad made 'Where's the beef?' famous?

Wendy's ran the 1984 'Fluffy Bun' commercial in which Clara Peller demanded 'Where's the beef?' of a rival's oversized bun.

Who spoke in front of a 'Mission Accomplished' banner on a carrier in 2003?

George W. Bush declared major combat in Iraq over beneath the banner on May 1, 2003, aboard an aircraft carrier off San Diego, yet the same speech warned of 'difficult work' ahead and said 'our mission continues'.

Who concluded 'you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold' in 1896?

William Jennings Bryan ended his 'Cross of Gold' speech with the line at the 1896 Democratic convention in Chicago, winning the nomination.

Who wrote in 1789 that nothing is certain 'except death and taxes'?

Benjamin Franklin wrote the line in a November 13, 1789 letter to the French scientist Jean-Baptiste Le Roy about the new Constitution; Daniel Defoe had paired death and taxes in print back in 1726.

Who declared 'A house divided against itself cannot stand' in 1858?

Abraham Lincoln said it on June 16, 1858, accepting the Illinois Republican nomination for the Senate; he argued that the government could not endure 'permanently half slave and half free'.

Which president warned against the 'military-industrial complex' in his 1961 farewell?

Dwight D. Eisenhower, a career general and World War II commander, used his televised farewell on January 17, 1961 to warn against the arms industry gaining 'unwarranted influence' in government.

Who wrote 'some of us are looking at the stars' in an 1892 play?

Oscar Wilde gave the line to Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere's Fan (1892); a friend at once teases him for being 'very romantic to-night', since he has fallen for the married Lady Windermere.

Which poet ended 'The Hollow Men' with 'not with a bang but a whimper'?

T. S. Eliot closed The Hollow Men (1925) with 'This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper', just after turning a nursery rhyme into 'Here we go round the prickly pear'.

At a 1956 Louisiana Hayride show, an announcer used a now-famous exit line to keep fans seated after which singer's set?

Elvis Presley had 'left the building', the announcer told the crowd in December 1956, begging fans to take their seats for the remaining acts; the line now signals that the star has gone and the show is done.

Which government produced the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster in 1939?

The United Kingdom's Ministry of Information printed 'Keep Calm and Carry On' in 1939 but never issued it widely; a copy resurfaced at Barter Books in 2000.

Which Democratic strategist coined the 1992 campaign phrase 'It's the economy, stupid'?

James Carville wrote 'The economy, stupid' on a sign at campaign headquarters, one of three reminders meant for staff rather than voters; the others were 'Change vs. more of the same' and 'Don't forget health care'.

Which physicist wrote to Max Born in 1926 that God 'does not play dice'?

Albert Einstein wrote it to Max Born in December 1926, rejecting the randomness of quantum mechanics: 'I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.'

Which Canadian media theorist's maxim was 'The medium is the message'?

Marshall McLuhan made it the first chapter title of Understanding Media (1964); by his son's account, a typesetter's slip turned a later title into The Medium Is the Massage, and McLuhan said to leave it alone.

Which novel opens with the line 'Call me Ishmael'?

Moby-Dick (1851) opens with its narrator's 'Call me Ishmael'; an epilogue reveals that he alone survived the wreck of the Pequod, picked up by a ship searching for its own lost crew.

Which Dickens novel begins 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'?

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) opens with the line and closes as famously, with Sydney Carton going to the guillotine in another man's place: 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.'

Which Shakespeare character delivers the 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy?

Hamlet delivers 'To be, or not to be' in Act 3, Scene 1, weighing life against death while Claudius and Polonius hide nearby to spy on his meeting with Ophelia.

Which Shakespeare character says that a rose 'by any other name would smell as sweet'?

Juliet says it in Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, arguing that Romeo's Montague name means nothing, unaware that he is listening from the garden below.

Which Shakespeare character says 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks' while watching a play at court?

Queen Gertrude of Denmark says it of the Player Queen's showy vows never to remarry; 'protest' then meant 'vow' or 'declare', so her complaint is about overdone promises, not denials.

In which Shakespeare history play does a king cry 'Once more unto the breach'?

Henry V has the king shout the line to send his men back into the attack on Harfleur, the French port he is besieging, after their first assault is beaten off; it opens Act 3, Scene 1.

Who begins a funeral oration 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears'?

Mark Antony opens his funeral oration with the line in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy, then turns the crowd against Marcus Brutus and the other conspirators.

Which Jane Austen novel opens 'It is a truth universally acknowledged...'?

Pride and Prejudice (1813) opens by declaring that a rich single man 'must be in want of a wife'; within a page, Mrs Bennet is planning to marry one of her five daughters to a wealthy new neighbour.

Which US senator's silencing in 2017 popularised 'Nevertheless, she persisted'?

Elizabeth Warren was silenced under Senate Rule XIX on February 7, 2017, while reading Coretta Scott King's letter opposing Jeff Sessions; Mitch McConnell's 'Nevertheless, she persisted' became a slogan.

What do 'well-behaved women seldom make', in scholar Laurel Ulrich's much-quoted 1970s line?

History, Ulrich wrote in an article on funeral sermons, noting how quiet, conventional lives fade from the record; the line escaped onto T-shirts and mugs, and she later used it as a book title.

Which boxer said his style was to 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'?

Muhammad Ali chanted the line as Cassius Clay before taking Sonny Liston's heavyweight title in February 1964; later that year he dropped his birth name, calling it a 'slave name'.

Which US president insisted 'I am not a crook' at a televised 1973 session with newspaper editors?

Richard Nixon said it in Orlando on November 17, 1973, at a hotel inside Walt Disney World; he was defending his personal finances, adding, 'I have earned everything I have got.'

Which TV character is popularly credited with the catchphrase 'Just the facts, ma'am'?

Joe Friday of Dragnet usually said 'All we want are the facts, ma'am'; the clipped version caught on after Stan Freberg's chart-topping 1953 parody record, St. George and the Dragonet.

In which film does Darth Vader reveal 'No, I am your father' to Luke?

The Empire Strikes Back (1980) has Vader say it on Cloud City; the 'No' is his answer to Luke's charge that Vader killed his father.

Which US president said 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman'?

Bill Clinton said it at the White House on January 26, 1998; that August he told the nation on television that he had in fact had a relationship with Monica Lewinsky that was 'not appropriate'.

Which cartoon character is known for asking 'What's up, Doc'?

Bugs Bunny first asked 'What's up, Doc?' in A Wild Hare (1940); director Tex Avery took the greeting from his Texas schooldays, when 'doc' was slang much like today's 'dude'.

Who wrote 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free'?

Emma Lazarus wrote the lines in 'The New Colossus', a sonnet she was asked for in 1883 to help raise money for the Statue of Liberty's pedestal; a bronze plaque of it went up inside in 1903.

Which Union general vowed 'to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer'?

Ulysses S. Grant wrote the line in a dispatch to Washington on May 11, 1864, from Spotsylvania; one summer was not enough, and from June he was dug in outside Petersburg for a siege of some nine months.

Which naval commander reported 'We have met the enemy and they are ours' in 1813?

Oliver Hazard Perry sent the message to General Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813, a fight he won only after abandoning his crippled flagship mid-battle and taking command of another ship.

Who recalled 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' at the Trinity test?

J. Robert Oppenheimer said in 1965 that the Bhagavad Gita line came to mind at the Trinity test, where, as he remembered it, 'a few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent'.

Which company used the slogan 'Think different' from 1997 to 2002?

Apple ran 'Think different' from 1997 to 2002, and the slogan was widely read as an answer to IBM's 'Think'.

Who narrates the original Star Trek mission 'to boldly go where no man has gone before'?

James T. Kirk, voiced by William Shatner, narrates the opening monologue of the original 1966 series; Picard's Next Generation version says 'no one'.

Who devised the Vulcan salute paired with 'live long and prosper'?

Leonard Nimoy devised the salute for the 1967 episode 'Amok Time', basing it on the hand gesture of the Jewish priestly blessing he saw as a boy.

Which villain repeatedly asks 'Why so serious?' in The Dark Knight?

The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, asks 'Why so serious?' while explaining his scars in The Dark Knight (2008), and he gives two different stories of how he got them.

From which Disney film did the Swahili phrase 'Hakuna matata' reach Western fame?

The Lion King (1994) made 'Hakuna matata', Swahili for 'no worries', famous through Timon and Pumbaa's song, but the Kenyan band Them Mushrooms had already sung the phrase in their 1982 hit Jambo Bwana.

Which Toy Story character shouts 'To infinity and beyond!'?

Buzz Lightyear, the space-ranger toy voiced by Tim Allen in Toy Story (1995), was named in honour of the real-life spaceman Buzz Aldrin.

Which Big Bang Theory character says 'Bazinga!'?

Sheldon Cooper cries 'Bazinga!' after his pranks and jokes on The Big Bang Theory; in 2012 biologists in Brazil named a new orchid bee Euglossa bazinga because it had fooled them for some time by passing as another species.

Which Simpsons character is famous for the catchphrase 'D'oh!'?

Homer Simpson's 'D'oh!', voiced by Dan Castellaneta since the show's 1989 debut, entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001.

The catchphrase 'yada yada yada' was popularised by which sitcom?

Seinfeld built its April 1997 episode 'The Yada Yada' around the phrase: George's girlfriend uses it to skip the awkward parts of her stories, one of which turns out to be shoplifting.

Who wrote that a woman needs 'money and a room of her own' to write fiction?

Virginia Woolf wrote it in A Room of One's Own (1929), where she imagines Shakespeare's 'wonderfully gifted sister', Judith, to show how a woman of his talent would have been kept from writing.

Which Roman poet's Odes gives us 'carpe diem' ('seize the day')?

Horace wrote 'carpe diem' in Ode 1.11; the verb literally means to pluck or pick, as with ripe fruit, so a closer reading is 'pluck the day'.

Which philosopher wrote the line 'Hell is other people'?

Jean-Paul Sartre gave the line to Garcin in his 1944 play No Exit, where three dead strangers expect torture chambers and find that Hell is a locked drawing room with only each other for company.

Which classic treatise states 'All warfare is based on deception'?

The Art of War, attributed to the Chinese general Sun Tzu, says it in its opening chapter and goes on: when able to attack, seem unable; when near, make the enemy believe you are far away.

Which philosopher wrote 'God is dead' in The Gay Science?

Friedrich Nietzsche puts 'God is dead' in the mouth of a madman in The Gay Science (1882), who runs into the marketplace with a lantern in broad daylight, crying that he is looking for God.

Who wrote 'Religion is the opium of the people'?

Karl Marx wrote it in an 1844 essay on Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in a passage that also calls religion 'the sigh of the oppressed creature' and 'the heart of a heartless world'.

Which 1848 work's closing line became the rallying cry 'Workers of the world, unite!'?

The Communist Manifesto (1848) ends, in its standard English version, 'Working Men of All Countries, Unite!'; the German says 'Proletarians of all countries', and the snappier slogan came later.

Who coined 'the pen is mightier than the sword' in an 1839 play about Cardinal Richelieu?

Edward Bulwer-Lytton gave the line to Richelieu himself; he also opened a novel with 'It was a dark and stormy night', which later inspired a contest for dreadful opening sentences.

Which Latin proverb translates as 'Fortune favours the bold'?

Audentes Fortuna iuvat is the usual form of a line from Virgil's Aeneid, where Turnus, the hero's enemy, shouts it to urge an attack on the Trojans as they come ashore.

Future justice Louis Brandeis's 1914 book called what 'the best of disinfectants'?

Sunlight, he wrote, meaning publicity: Other People's Money argued that exposing bankers' dealings would curb the 'Money Trust', and added, 'electric light the most efficient policeman'.

An 1897 New York Sun editorial assured eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon that which figure does exist?

Santa Claus, the Sun's unsigned editorial told her on September 21, 1897; she had written because her father said, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so', and the paper reprinted its answer for decades.

Which Roman emperor reputedly lamented 'What an artist dies in me' as he prepared for death?

Nero, by Suetonius's account, kept repeating the lament while his grave was being dug in AD 68; as emperor he had appeared in public as an actor, singer and chariot racer.

Which German writer's reputed last words were 'Mehr Licht!' ('More light!')?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is reputed to have called for 'Mehr Licht!' as he died in Weimar in 1832, though the doctor who reported it was not in the room; another account has him asking for a shutter to be opened.

Which Founding Father reputedly said 'Thomas Jefferson survives' on his deathbed in 1826?

John Adams reputedly said it as he died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; Jefferson had in fact died at Monticello a few hours earlier.

Union general John Sedgwick was shot dead moments after saying enemy sharpshooters couldn't hit what 'at this distance'?

An elephant, John Sedgwick said at Spotsylvania on May 9, 1864, moments before a Confederate bullet killed him; his commanding general, told the news, could hardly believe it.

Whose greeting to a long-missing explorer at Ujiji in 1871 was 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume'?

Henry Morton Stanley had been sent by the New York Herald to find him; by Stanley's own account, Livingstone answered simply 'Yes', smiled and lifted his cap.

Which general, having escaped the Philippines in 1942, declared in Australia 'I came through and I shall return'?

Douglas MacArthur said it to reporters at Terowie railway station in South Australia on March 20, 1942, after escaping Corregidor by PT boat on March 11.

Leo Durocher's 1946 remark about the Giants became which saying?

Nice guys finish last is the reporters' version: in July 1946 Durocher called the rival Giants nice guys and pointed to where they stood, seventh place by the first printed account.

Former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly told a 1981 TV chat show that football was 'more important' than what?

Life and death: on a Granada chat show in May 1981 he recalled being told that football was a matter of life and death to him, and answering, 'Listen, it's more important than that.'

The US Declaration of Independence names three unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of what?

Happiness was not the obvious third word: just two years earlier the First Continental Congress had claimed the rights to life, liberty and property.

The King James Bible's Proverbs 16:18 says pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before what?

A fall follows the haughty spirit, while pride itself goes before destruction: the everyday saying about pride and a fall is probably a shortened form of this verse.

Robert Burns wrote in 1785 that the best-laid schemes of which pair often go astray?

Mice and men share the bad luck, in a poem Burns is said to have composed after wrecking a nest with his plough; John Steinbeck later borrowed the phrase for a novel.

Often misquoted, William Congreve's line in The Mourning Bride says music has charms to soothe a savage what?

Breast is the word Congreve wrote; the beast crept in later, and the same tragedy is also the source of the saying about hell having no fury like a woman scorned.

Unhorsed at Bosworth in Shakespeare's Richard III, the king cries out that he would trade what for a horse?

His kingdom is the price Richard offers, moments before the Earl of Richmond kills him and claims the throne for himself.

The inscription over the gate of Hell in Dante's Inferno tells everyone who enters to abandon what?

All hope is left at the gate, and just beyond it Dante meets the Uncommitted, souls who never took a side in life and now chase a wavering banner forever.

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan describes life without government as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and what?

Short ends the list; Hobbes wrote Leviathan during the English Civil War to argue that only an absolute sovereign could prevent a war of all against all.

In John Milton's Paradise Lost, the fallen Satan declares it better to reign in Hell than to serve where?

In Heaven is where Satan refuses to serve, a defiance that led Romantic writers such as Blake, Byron and Shelley to read him as the hero of Milton's poem.

In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, the Prince of Morocco reads that all that glisters is not what?

Gold is the word, and glisters is no slip: it was a 16th-century synonym for glitters, which later versions of the proverb swapped in.

Alexander Pope's 1711 poem An Essay on Criticism says that to err is human, but to forgive is what?

Divine is Pope's word, in a poem that also gave English the proverb about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.

The Dieter of Dieter-or-Dumbledore quizzes is Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a German apostle of which faith?

Latter-day Saints sustained him as an apostle in 2004, after a first career as a fighter pilot and airline captain.

Before becoming an apostle, Dieter F. Uchtdorf spent three decades at which airline, where he rose to chief pilot?

Lufthansa made him a captain at 29, after he had trained as a fighter pilot in Texas and won the trophy for best student pilot in his class.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf built a 2011 sermon around the five petals of which tiny flower from a German legend?

Forget-me-not petals stood for five things worth remembering, and the same sermon used Willy Wonka's golden ticket as a warning against waiting on one big prize to be happy.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf's sermon Lift Where You Stand takes its title from a group of men struggling to move what?

A grand piano would not budge in a Darmstadt meetinghouse until one man suggested that everyone simply stand close together and lift from where they stood.

Which actor took over Albus Dumbledore's lines from Prisoner of Azkaban onward after Richard Harris died?

Michael Gambon got the part after Ian McKellen turned it down, having just played another wizard and having once been called a dreadful actor by Harris.

The epitaph on the Dumbledore family tomb, about treasure and the heart, comes from which book of the Bible?

Matthew 6:21 supplies the epitaph, and J. K. Rowling put a second Bible verse, from 1 Corinthians, on the grave of Harry's parents.

Albus Dumbledore rewards which Gryffindor first-year with House Cup points for daring to stand up to friends?

Neville is rewarded for trying to stop his own friends, and J. K. Rowling has said she wanted him to find true moral courage in standing up to the people on his side.

Albus Dumbledore warns Harry Potter that men have wasted their lives entranced by which magical object?

The Mirror of Erised is named for desire spelled backwards, and Dumbledore later uses it as the final protection around the Philosopher's Stone.

The surname of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore is borrowed from an old dialect word for which insect?

Bumblebee is the meaning, and J. K. Rowling chose it because Dumbledore loves music: she pictured him wandering around humming to himself.

On Friends, Joey Tribbiani's biggest acting break is playing which doctor on the real soap Days of Our Lives?

Dr. Drake Ramoray later returns from a coma thanks to a brain transplant, with guest star Susan Sarandon playing the character who supplies the brain.

After Joey Tribbiani of Friends brags that he writes his own lines, how do the angry soap writers kill his character?

Down an elevator shaft he goes, costing Joey the job and his new apartment, although the soap later brings the doctor back and rehires him.

Joey Tribbiani on Friends turns the phrase moot point into a saying about the worthless opinion of which animal?

A cow, because Joey hears the phrase as moo point, a mishearing of the kind linguists call an eggcorn, and the sitcom made his version popular.

Joey Tribbiani's rented-tuxedo scene on Friends helped popularise which phrase for wearing no underwear?

Going commando was already American campus slang in the 1970s, but Joey's use of it turned the phrase into a popular catchphrase, especially in sports media.

On Friends, Joey Tribbiani's date with one of Phoebe's friends goes wrong when she breaks his rule against sharing what?

His food is off limits, pizza above all, although as a coffee-house waiter he happily hands out free food to women he wants to impress.

On How I Met Your Mother, winning the Slap Bet lets Marshall Eriksen slap which friend without warning?

Barney Stinson is offered ten slaps at once or five at any moment Marshall chooses, picks the five, and spends the rest of the series waiting for them.

Marshall Eriksen of How I Met Your Mother grew up as the youngest of three brothers in which Midwestern state?

Minnesota shapes him: he is a devoted Vikings fan like his father, and his surname and his talk of lutefisk hint at Scandinavian roots.

Which Freaks and Geeks alumnus delivers Marshall Eriksen's lines on How I Met Your Mother?

Jason Segel played Marshall from 2005 to 2014, and in the middle of that run he wrote and starred in a film with a fitting title, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Marshall Eriksen of How I Met Your Mother has absolute faith that Sasquatch and which other legendary creature are real?

The Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch both get his total belief, an unlikely creed for a man who works as a corporate lawyer at Goliath National Bank.

Marshall Eriksen's storylines on How I Met Your Mother keep returning to his dream of practising which branch of law?

Environmental law is the dream he shelves for a corporate job, turning down the Natural Resources Defense Council so that he can provide for Lily.

Which Charles Dickens miser brushes off Christmas cheer with the catchphrase 'Bah! Humbug!' in an 1843 novella?

Ebenezer Scrooge made such a mark that his surname entered English as a byword for greed, long after three Christmas ghosts reformed him.

Which playing-card ruler in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland keeps shouting 'Off with his head!' at her subjects?

The Queen of Hearts hands out death sentences constantly, yet the Gryphon tells Alice that she executes nobody, and the King quietly pardons her victims.

Which vampire of an 1897 novel hears wolves howling in the valley and calls them 'the children of the night'?

Count Dracula says it to his guest Jonathan Harker, calls the howling music, and adds that city dwellers cannot share the feelings of a hunter.

Which Treasure Island character keeps Captain Flint, the parrot that squawks 'Pieces of eight!', on his shoulder?

Long John Silver named the bird after his old pirate captain, and his parrot and missing leg did much to fix the popular image of a pirate.

Which storybook boy, stranded on a rock in a rising lagoon, says 'To die will be an awfully big adventure'?

Peter Pan thinks it with a smile as the tide rises around Marooners' Rock, moments after sending Wendy to safety on the tail of a kite.

Which Charlotte Brontë heroine breaks off her story to tell her audience, 'Reader, I married him'?

Jane Eyre opens Chapter 38 with the line; her groom is Mr Rochester, who had lost a hand and his sight in the fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall.

Which mischievous sprite in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream exclaims 'Lord, what fools these mortals be!'?

Puck says it while watching the Athenian lovers quarrel, a muddle he caused himself by putting the love potion on Lysander instead of Demetrius.

Which Shakespeare character cries 'Out, damned spot!' while sleepwalking and rubbing at imagined blood on her hands?

Lady Macbeth goaded her husband into killing King Duncan, and the sleepwalking scene in the fifth act shows guilt driving her towards madness.

Which Dickens lawyer dies at the guillotine in another man's place, thinking it 'a far, far better thing'?

Sydney Carton looks so much like the condemned Charles Darnay that he can swap places with him, giving his life for the woman they both love.

In Wuthering Heights, Catherine Earnshaw tells the housekeeper Nelly Dean that she herself is which other character?

Heathcliff, she says, is more herself than she is, yet in the same breath she explains why she has agreed to marry Edgar Linton instead.

William Wordsworth opens his best-known poem, written after a lakeside walk past daffodils, wandering lonely as a what?

Cloud is the image, inspired by a walk with his sister beside Ullswater in 1802, when the pair came across a long belt of daffodils along the shore.

The King James Bible's 1 Timothy 6:10 names the love of what as the root of all evil?

Money itself is not condemned: the verse blames the love of it, and newer translations soften the claim further, to a root of all kinds of evil.

The Tao Te Ching, ascribed to Laozi, says a journey of a thousand miles begins with what?

A single step is the familiar version, though the Chinese is closer to saying the journey begins beneath one's feet, and the line is often wrongly credited to Confucius.

Philosopher George Santayana warned in 1905 that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to do what?

Repeat it is the warning, from Reason in Common Sense, the first of the five volumes of The Life of Reason by the Spanish-born American thinker.

Jaques in Shakespeare's As You Like It says all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely what?

Players, meaning actors: the melancholy Jaques goes on to list the seven ages of man, the parts each person plays in the course of a lifetime.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden that the mass of men lead lives of quiet what?

Desperation was his verdict after two years, two months and two days in a cabin he built on land owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau opens The Social Contract by declaring that man is born free yet is everywhere in what?

Chains was a provocative word in 1762: the book was banned in Paris and burned in the author's native Geneva.

Voltaire's 1759 satire Candide ends with the practical advice that we must cultivate our what?

Garden is the last word, a modest answer to Professor Pangloss, who insists through every disaster that this is the best of all possible worlds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1841 essay Self-Reliance calls a foolish consistency the hobgoblin of what?

Little minds are the target, and Emerson adds that such consistency is adored by little statesmen and philosophers too.

John Donne's 1624 meditation says never send to know for whom the bell tolls, because it tolls for whom?

Thee, meaning every reader: Donne wrote the meditation while recovering from a serious illness, and it also contains the claim that no man is an island.

John Keats opens his 1818 poem Endymion with the claim that a thing of beauty is what?

A joy for ever is how the poem begins, yet Endymion drew scathing criticism on its release, and even Keats faulted its diffuse style.