Who Said It? The Philosopher Quotes Quiz
Estimated Completion Time 3 min
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About This Quiz
How much do you know about great thoughts and big thinkers? Take this quiz to match the philosophers with their famous quotes.
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"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
Russell was considered an analytic philosopher and pacifist.
"All sins are attempts to fill voids."
In spite of her poor health, Weil was full of philosophical ideas.
"God is dead! He remains dead! And we have killed him."
Nietzsche's assertion had him branded as an atheist.
"Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit."
Cavendish's many memorable quotes show that she never lost her wit.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates has some of the most famous quotes in history.
"Man is condemned to be free."
Sartre was well known for his existential views.
“To be is to be perceived.”
Berkeley also had some influence on the development of calculus.
"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others."
Confucius taught this "Golden Rule."
"They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch."
Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat and is the namesake of the word "sadism."
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it."
This Greek philosopher Epicurus expended much energy towards living a happy and peaceful life.
"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy."
Of course, Beethoven had a vested interest in believing that line of thinking.
"Always do right — this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
Twain cranked out many one-line philosophical rants.
"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."
Lincoln may have been the most philosophical of American presidents
"The only thing I know is that I know nothing."
But compared to most people, Socrates actually knew quite a bit about life.
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
Plato said this. The Greeks had more than their share of great philosophers.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Aristotle's idea still applies today, long after Athens fell.
"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet."
By some accounts, St. Augustine was a wild child.
“Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but of how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”
Kant was regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the late 1700s.
"In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will."
Many of Stein's most famous sayings have religious leanings.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
Voltaire wasn't afraid of much of anything, garnering scorning from the established society of his day.
"In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today, he'd have a talk show."
If only Leary were alive today to see how right he was.
"We have art to save ourselves from the truth."
Nietzsche's big ideas cut through a life that was hampered by ill health.
"Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder."
Aquinas was also deeply respected as a member of the Catholic church.
"There is only one good — knowledge — and one evil — ignorance."
Socrates demonstrated an uncanny grasp on the motivations of human behavior.
"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Emerson is renowned for leading the transcendentalist movement.
"Leisure is the mother of philosophy."
Hobbes also thought human judgment was flawed and required guidance.
"Plato was a bore."
Nietzsche said this. Philosophers that hurl insults are the best kind.
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."
Thoreau said this. Maybe we should all go looking in the woods.
"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
Pretty music makes a nice cover for dumb ideas, according to Voltaire.
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
Russell was also a mathematician, where doubt at least sometimes takes a back seat to proof.
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