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LiteratureMedium

Famous Quotes, Writers & Poets

Saint-Exupéry, Rousseau, Voltaire, Flaubert, Shakespeare: 15 iconic lines, including "Madame Bovary, c'est moi" and the opening of The Social Contract. Your turn to match each quote to its author.

15

Questions

2

Minutes

Tip: Use keys 1-4 to answer quickly

The 15 quiz questions

Question 1 : "One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.", Who wrote this?

Possible answers:

  • Saint-Exupéry
  • Hugo
  • Apollinaire
  • Prévert

Explanation: Words of the fox in The Little Prince (1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, one of the most translated books in the world.

Question 2 : "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.", Who is the author?

Possible answers:

  • Voltaire
  • Diderot
  • Rousseau
  • Montesquieu

Explanation: Opening line of The Social Contract (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a foundational text of democratic thought.

Question 3 : « If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. », Who said this?

Possible answers:

  • Rousseau
  • Montesquieu
  • Diderot
  • Voltaire

Explanation: Voltaire, in his Epistle to the Author of the Book of the Three Impostors (1768), asserts the social necessity of a notion of God, independent of its metaphysical reality. A formula widely cited during the Enlightenment to discuss religion.

Question 4 : "Madame Bovary, that's me.", To whom is this quote attributed?

Possible answers:

  • Balzac
  • Zola
  • Flaubert
  • Maupassant

Explanation: A quote attributed to Gustave Flaubert, expressing his total identification with his character.

Question 5 : "To be, or not to be, that is the question.", Who wrote this line?

Possible answers:

  • Shakespeare
  • Molière
  • Racine
  • Corneille

Explanation: Hamlet's soliloquy (Act III, Scene 1), one of the most famous lines in Western theatre.

Question 6 : "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.", Who wrote this?

Possible answers:

  • H.G. Wells
  • Ray Bradbury
  • George Orwell
  • Aldous Huxley

Explanation: The pigs' maxim in Animal Farm (1945), a satire of Stalinist totalitarianism.

Question 7 : "For a long time, I went to bed early.", Who wrote this opening line?

Possible answers:

  • Stendhal
  • Flaubert
  • Proust
  • Gide

Explanation: Opening line of Swann's Way (1913), the first sentence of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.

Question 8 : "The long sobs of autumn violins wound my heart with a monotonous languor.", Who is the poet?

Possible answers:

  • Rimbaud
  • Verlaine
  • Hugo
  • Baudelaire

Explanation: Chanson d'automne by Paul Verlaine. These verses were also the BBC coded message announcing D-Day in 1944.

Question 9 : "Families, I hate you!", Who wrote this exclamation?

Possible answers:

  • Albert Camus
  • André Gide
  • Paul Éluard
  • Rimbaud

Explanation: From The Fruits of the Earth (1897) by André Gide, a cry of revolt against bourgeois conformism.

Question 10 : « In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. », Who wrote this?

Possible answers:

  • Albert Camus
  • Prévert
  • Giono
  • Marcel Pagnol

Explanation: This quote from Albert Camus's "Return to Tipasa" (1952) expresses his philosophy of inner resistance in the face of absurdity. Camus, winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of The Stranger, The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus.

Question 11 : "All for one, one for all.", Who wrote this motto?

Possible answers:

  • Walter Scott
  • Victor Hugo
  • Balzac
  • Alexandre Dumas

Explanation: The musketeers' motto in The Three Musketeers (1844) by Alexandre Dumas.

Question 12 : "One should eat to live, not live to eat.", Who wrote this line?

Possible answers:

  • Corneille
  • La Fontaine
  • Rabelais
  • Molière

Explanation: A line by Harpagon in The Miser (1668) by Molière, which has become a proverb.

Question 13 : "I is someone else.", Who is the author of this statement?

Possible answers:

  • Mallarmé
  • Rimbaud
  • Verlaine
  • Baudelaire

Explanation: A statement by Arthur Rimbaud in his Lettre du voyant (1871), foundational to modern poetry.

Question 14 : "Beauty will save the world.", Who is the author?

Possible answers:

  • Gorky
  • Dostoevsky
  • Chekhov
  • Tolstoy

Explanation: A line by Prince Myshkin in The Idiot (1869) by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Question 15 : "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.", Who is the author?

Possible answers:

  • Tolstoy
  • Chekhov
  • Dostoevsky
  • Turgenev

Explanation: Opening line of Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy, one of the most famous novel openings.

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