Who Said It? Famous Quotes Trivia
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208 free Who Said It? Famous Quotes trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free Who Said It? Famous Quotes trivia questions with answers. Forty 'who said it?' questions, each giving a famous line and asking who really said it. The set spans great speeches, from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Churchill's wartime defiance to Kennedy's inaugural, King's dream and Reagan at the Berlin Wall. It mixes in history's memorable one-liners, like Caesar's 'I came, I saw, I conquered', Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am' and Archimedes' 'Eureka'. There is a run of famous movie and pop-culture quotes too, from Gone with the Wind and Casablanca to the Terminator and Star Wars, and a handful of clever traps: lines everyone credits to the wrong person, including 'Let them eat cake', the Voltaire quote he never wrote, and the Sherlock Holmes phrase that appears in none of the stories. It works for a pub quiz, a classroom or a party. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia, and the sentence that establishes it is shown under each explanation, including the notes on which quotes are misattributed.
30 of 208 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who said 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'?
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong said it on July 20, 1969, as he stepped off the Apollo 11 lunar module and became the first person to walk on the Moon.
Q 02Which US president declared 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
He said it in his first inaugural address in 1933, at the depth of the Great Depression.
Q 03Who urged Americans to 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country'?
John F. Kennedy
It came in his 1961 inaugural address.
Q 04Which US president said 'Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far'?
Theodore Roosevelt
He first used the West African proverb publicly in 1901 to describe his foreign policy.
Q 05Who pledged 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat'?
Winston Churchill
It was his first speech as prime minister, delivered to the House of Commons in May 1940.
Q 06Which prime minister told a 1980 party conference 'The lady's not for turning'?
Margaret Thatcher
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.
Q 07Which speech opens 'Four score and seven years ago'?
The Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address opens with those words; Abraham Lincoln delivered it on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the soldiers' cemetery at Gettysburg.
Q 08Who delivered the 'I Have a Dream' speech in 1963?
Martin Luther King Jr.
He spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.
Q 09Which American patriot is famous for the cry 'Give me liberty, or give me death!'?
Patrick Henry
He is said to have spoken it at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775.
Q 10Whose reputed last words were 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country'?
Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale, a Continental Army spy, is reputed to have said it before the British hanged him in New York on September 22, 1776.
Q 11Who reported to mission control, 'Okay, Houston, we\'ve had a problem here'?
Jack Swigert
He said it during the Apollo 13 crisis, and commander Jim Lovell repeated it moments later.
Q 12Which US president demanded 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'?
Ronald Reagan
He spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin in 1987.
Q 13Which US president declared 'Our long national nightmare is over' upon being sworn in?
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford said 'Our long national nightmare is over' in his swearing-in remarks on August 9, 1974, hours after Richard Nixon resigned.
Q 21Yogi Berra is famous for the paradox that a game or race is not finished until what?
It really is over
Yogi Berra's line was 'It ain't over till it's over', meaning it really is over only at the end; he said it of the 1973 Mets, who came from behind to win their division.
Q 22Which Soviet cosmonaut cried 'Poyekhali!' - 'Let\'s go!' - as he launched into space in 1961?
Yuri Gagarin
He became the first human to orbit the Earth aboard Vostok 1.
Q 23Which line did the American Film Institute rank the most memorable movie quotation of all time?
Frankly, my dear, I do not give a damn
Q 14Which US president said 'The chief business of the American people is business'?
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge said it in a January 17, 1925 speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington.
Q 15The Latin boast 'Veni, vidi, vici' - 'I came, I saw, I conquered' - is attributed to whom?
Julius Caesar
He reportedly wrote it to the Roman Senate after a swift victory at the Battle of Zela around 47 BC.
Q 16Which French philosopher wrote 'I think, therefore I am' (cogito, ergo sum)?
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes made 'cogito, ergo sum' the first principle of his philosophy, stating it in the Discourse on the Method in 1637.
Q 17Who confessed 'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants'?
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton wrote the line in a February 1675 letter to his rival Robert Hooke.
Q 18The saying 'I know that I know nothing' is associated with which ancient Greek philosopher?
Socrates
It captures his habit of disavowing knowledge while questioning others.
Q 19The famous exclamation 'Eureka!' - 'I have found it!' - is credited to which ancient thinker?
Archimedes
Archimedes, by Vitruvius's account, shouted it after seeing the water rise in his bath, the insight behind his principle of buoyancy.
Q 20Which abolitionist gave the 1851 speech remembered as 'Ain't I a Woman'?
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth gave the speech at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, on May 29, 1851.
'Frankly, my dear, I do not give a damn', Clark Gable's Rhett Butler line in Gone with the Wind (1939), topped the American Film Institute's 2005 list of 100 movie quotes.
Q 24The catchphrase 'I'll be back', from the 1984 film The Terminator, is associated with which actor?
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered 'I'll be back' as the T-800 in The Terminator (1984) and reused variations of it in later films.
Q 25The valediction 'May the Force be with you' comes from which film franchise?
Star Wars
'May the Force be with you' comes from Star Wars, first heard in the original 1977 film, and has passed into everyday use.
Q 26Which US president kept a sign reading 'The buck stops here' on his Oval Office desk?
Harry Truman
It meant that the responsibility for decisions ended with him.
Q 27'Let them eat cake' is traditionally but wrongly attributed to whom?
Marie Antoinette
There is no evidence she ever said it; it is now seen as a journalistic cliché.
Q 28Who actually wrote 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'?
Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote it in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), under the pen name S. G. Tallentyre, to summarise Voltaire's attitude rather than quote him.
Q 29Sherlock Holmes never actually says which phrase in any of Arthur Conan Doyle's sixty stories?
'Elementary, my dear Watson'
'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.
Q 30Which US admiral is credited with 'Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!' at Mobile Bay?
David Farragut
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.