Who said what?

There's a good reason why a man's bones are interred but his words live long after him. Across the millennia people have used words to express love and hate, to inspire courage, command loyalty and to share humour. Important or irrelevant, naughty or nice, the world's quotations are a veritable storehouse of wisdom.

How wise are you? Take the quiz.

1. Who said, 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat'?
a) Mahatma Gandhi
b) Marco Polo
c) T. Roosevelt
d) Winston Churchill

2. Who said on arriving in New York, 'I have nothing to declare but my genius'?
a) Oscar Wilde
b) Mark Twain
c) Terry Pratchet
d) Dido

3. Which of the following is not a famous gaffe by President George W Bush?
a) 'I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them.'
b) 'Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.'
c) 'They [the enemy] never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we.'
d) 'For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.'

4. Who said: 'The reason this theme is so common in old paintings is that years ago Europe was terrorised by packs of enormous naked women. They would stride into a town, munching on pears, and threaten to knock down the cathedral if their portraits weren't painted immediately.'
a) Jerry Seinfield
b) Dave Barry
c) Groucho Marx
d) Ali G

5. Which one of these comments on men did Mae West actually make?
a) 'It's not the men in my life but the life in my men that counts.'
b) 'I married beneath me, all women do.'
c) 'I want to be alone.'
d) 'It's raining men!'

6. Which great artist declared 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free'?
a) Leonardo Da Vinci
b) Michaelangelo
c) Picasso
d) Henry Moore

7. Which Irish writer said that fashion was 'nothing but an induced epidemic'?
a) G.B Shaw
b) W. B Yeats
c) Sean O' Casey
d) Oscar Wilde

8. Which children's author wrote: 'Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open'?
a) J.K. Rowling
b) Enid Blyton
c) Tamora Pierce
d) Jonathan Stroud

9. Which American first lady compared a woman to a teabag saying 'You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water'?
a) Hilary Clinton
b) Jacqueline Kennedy
c) Ladybird Johnson
d) Eleanor Roosevelt

10. Who asked God to give him a sign, 'like a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank account'?
a) Robin Williams
b) Tommy Lee Jones
c) Woody Allen
d) Stephen Fry

11. Can you complete this quotation by Thoreau - 'If you would convince a man that he does wrong....'?
a) Beat him unconscious
b) Imitate him
c) Don't imitate him
d) Do right

12. Who said: 'He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.'
a) Christopher Marlow
b) Shakespeare
c) John Milton
d) James Baldwin

13. Which of the following is not attributed to Mahatma Gandhi?
a) 'Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.'
b) 'I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.'
c) 'You must be the change you want to see in the world.'
d) 'Liberty: one of imagination's most precious possessions.'

14. Which Spice girl famously told Nelson Mandela: 'You're as young as the girl that you feel'?
a) Mel C (Sporty)
b) Geri (Ginger)
c) Victoria (Posh)
d) Mel B (Scary)

15. Who said: 'The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.'
a) Adolf Hitler
b) Mussolini
c) Saddam Hussein
d) Josef Stalin

Scoring Table
1. d) This is what, Winston Churchill told his cabinet when he became Prime Minister in 1940. Later he also said: 'You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.'

2. a) Oscar Wilde. This famous playwright was known for his great wit and conversational abilities. His audacious flouting of social norms, both in his public and private life made him notorious.

3. b) Touted at the president with lowest IQ ever, George W. Bush is becoming famous for his 'Bushisms' - this "subliminable" individual has been caught using "subscribe" for "ascribe," "retort" for "resort," "hostile" for "hostage," "suckles" for "sucks," and so on ad infinitum. The final judgement can be made in his own words: 'I think anybody who doesn't think I'm smart enough to handle the job is underestimating.'

4. b) Dave Barry is a bestselling American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist known particularly for his column in the The Miami Herald.

5. a) Mae West was one of those wonder women - an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol, she was famous for her bawdy double entendres. One of the most controversial stars of her day. West had lots to say about men. For instance: 'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.'

6. b) For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor was to free the forms that were already inside the stone. He believed that every stone had a sculpture within it, and that the work of sculpting was simply a matter of chipping away all that wasn't a part of the statue.

7. a) George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1925) and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay (in 1938 for Pygmalion).After those of William Shakespeare, Shaw's plays are said to be among the most widely produced in English language theatre.

8. a) Harry Potter continues to make the 'evil list.' Author J.K Rowling says on her website: "Once again, the Harry Potter books feature on this year's list of most-banned books. As this puts me in the company of Harper Lee, Mark Twain, J. D. Salinger, William Golding, John Steinbeck and other writers I revere, I have always taken my annual inclusion on the list as a great honour."

9. d) Eleanor Roosevelt was quite a lady. Not only was she a leader in forming the United Nations, the United Nations Association and Freedom House, she also chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Harry S. Truman called her the 'First Lady of the World' in honour of her extensive human rights promotions.

10. c) Also credited to this Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, musician, and comedian is the quote: "How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?"

11. d) Thoreau's the kind of guy I'd feel a bit intimidated around. His collected work of books, articles, essays, journals and poetry total over 20 volumes and his philosophy had tremendous influence in great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

12. b) Almost four hundred years after Shakespeare's death there are 15 million pages referring to him on Google. There are 132 million for God, 2.7 million for Elvis Presley, and coming up on Shakespeare's heels, George W. Bush with 14.7 million.

13. d) that's an Ambrose Bierce quote. One of my other favourites goes: 'I think it would be a good idea.' - Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization.

14. b) 'Golly Gumboots!' you may ask, 'Where are they now?' Well, since the group's break up, reunion rumours have persisted. The general consensus is that something will happen to commemorate the Spice Girls' tenth anniversary - whether it is a one-off gig, a greatest hits album release or possibly even a tour!

15. a) …and Hitler gave the world plenty of cause for fear. In the end, his racial policies led to the mass murder of at least eleven million people in what is now known as the Holocaust.