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Quotable Quotes
Literature
100

What is the capital of Maine?

Augusta

100

What element is present in all organic compounds?

Carbon

100

What Italian Renaissance artist (1445-1510) painted "Primavera" (1480)

Birth of Venus (1485) 


and Cestello Anunciation (1490)?


Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi

Sandro Botticelli or 

Botticelli

100

Buenos Aires, Argentina, is beside what river?

Rio de la Plata

100

We look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Helen Keller

100

What English author wrote a book that started with this, and what is the title of the book?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief . . . ."  

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

200

What American investigative journalist (1862-1931) was born enslaved, wrote about incidents of racial segregation, lynching and organized criminal activity, and co-founded the NAACP?

Ida B. Wells

200

What hormone, naturally produced by the body primarily in the pineal gland, regulates a person's sleep-wake cycle?

Melatonin

200

Who was the French sculptor (1840-1917) generally considered the founder of modern sculpture, whose works include 

"The Thinker" 


and "Monument to Balzac"?


Auguste Rodin

or

Rodin

200

What is the name of the Cape in Chile that marks where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet?

Cape Horn

200

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

200

What highly influential German writer, poet, novelist, and playwright,  scientist, philosopher, and statesman (1749-1832) wrote "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and "Faust," among other books, and made contributions to science, particularly in botany and optics?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

or

Goethe

300

During what War did the British in 1814 burn the White House, then occupied by President James Madison and his wife, Dolly?

War of 1812

300

What 18th Century person demonstrated that lightning is a form of electricity, introduced key terminology like "positive," "negative," "charge," "conductor," and "battery" in the context of electricity, and invented the lightning rod?

Benjamin Franklin

300

Which Spanish Romantic artist who lived from 1746 to 1828, became Prime Court Painter in 1799,  made the "Black Paintings" toward the end of his life,
and lent his name to Spain’s highest film award and a Metro station in Madrid?

Francisco Goya

or

Goya

300

What Canadian city is directly south of a U.S. city?

Windsor, Ontario

300

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

Albert Einstein

300

What American writer developed and edited "The Black Book" in 1974, an anthology of photographs, illustrations, essays, and documents of Black life in the United States from the time of slavery to the 1920s, won the Pulitzer Prize for "Beloved" in 1987, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Toni Morrison

400

What place in South Dakota is the site of the 1890 Massacre in which U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Lakota people.

Wounded Knee

400

How many known elements are on the standard periodic table?

118

400

Who was an American Impressionist painter and printmaker (1844-1926) known for her intimate depictions of mothers and children in domestic settings, whose paintings are characterized by loose brushwork, pastel colors, and thoughtful composition.

Mary Cassatt

400

What British colony was returned to China in 1997 when its 99-year lease expired?

Hong Kong

400

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

Mother Teresa

400

What French novelist, journalist and playwright (1901-1967) was the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, wrote many novels including Les Rougon-Macquart cycle and in 1898 published the open letter to the President of France, "J'Accuse...!" on the front page of the Paris daily L'Aurore, accusing the highest levels of the French Army of obstruction of justice and antisemitism by having wrongfully convicted Alfred Dreyfus to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. 

 ?

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola 

or 

Émile Zola

or

Zola 

500

Which state was an independent country from 1836 to 1845, when it was annexed by the United States and admitted to the union as the 28th state?

Texas

500

What process is used by bats, whales, dolphins, shrews, and some birds to locate prey and for navigation?

Echolocation, the use of sound waves to determine the location of objects.

500

Who was the German-Swiss painter and printmaker (1497-1543) considered to be one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century, having painted portraits of Henry VIII, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour, Edward Prince of Wales, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell and The Ambassadors, among others?

 


Hans Holbein (the Younger)

500

What are two of the five smallest (by land area) countries in the world?

Vatican City

Monaco

Nauru

Tuvalu

San Marino

500

What British scientist, who lived from 1643 to 1727 and developed theories on calculus, optics, motion and gravitation, once famously stated:

“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me”?

Isaac Newton

500

What Italian Renaissance woman (1364–1430), whose family was originally from Pizano, and who wrote “The Letter of the Goddess Othea to Hector” (around 1400), about the proper education of young men, “Book of the City of Ladies” (around 1405), her most famous work asserting a new positive view of the role of women in history, and “The Tale of Joan of Arc (1430), while Joan of Arc was still alive (died 1431)?

Christine de Pizan

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