Throughout our lives, we’ve all heard a line, a quote or a saying that we’ve remembered, or maybe not, but when we hear it again, it brings us back to thinking about the first time we heard it and how or where we heard it. It might be something from history, a movie or television program, or maybe a commercial or advertisement slogan. All that is to segue to today’s piece, which is another in the series of brain ticklers/teasers/trivia challenges offered by The Voice from the Bullpen.

In today’s little quiz, you will be given a famous, unforgettable, or historic saying or quote, and you will have to come up with who said it. The Voice from the Bullpen will add any other information that may be interesting (or not) about that quote or saying. For example, if the Voice gave the line, “What say there, Ralphie Boy?” you would be correct by responding Ed Norton (Art Carney), in an episode of “The Honeymooners.”

That seems to be pretty easy … so put down the paper for a second, go get your quiz supplies and your morning (or afternoon or evening) refreshments, and take a shot at this latest attempt to jiggle your memories brought to you by the Voice from the Bullpen.

Here we go…

1.) “Ask not, what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

2.) “I shall return.”

3.) “Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh … people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

4.) “The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.”

5.) “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

6.) “You can’t handle the truth!”

7.) “Once upon a time there was an engineer…Choo Choo Charlie was his name we hear…”

8.) “You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

9.) “Take my wife…please.”

10.) “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

11.) “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

12.) “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

13.) “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”

14.) “Today is a day that will live in infamy.”

15.) “The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

16.) “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

17.) “Good, better, best…Never let it rest…”til your good is better…and your better is best.”

18.) “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”

19.) “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

20.) “Down these mean streets a many must go, who is not himself mean…who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

21.) “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

22.) “N-E-S-T-L-E-S…Nestles makes the very best…chocolate”

23.) “War is hell.”

24.) “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

25.) “Good Night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.”

“That’s All Folks!” No, that wasn’t intended to be a bonus question, though I’ll give you two bonus points if you can tell me the character and the three points for voice behind the character that stammered those three famous words. I’ve added all the answers to this quiz below, so self-correct your papers … NO CHEATING, NOW … and give yourself four points for each correct response. Add any bonus points you receive for the character and voice after the quiz for a possible total score of 105.

Answers:

1.) John F. Kennedy – 1960 Inauguration Speech – January 1961

2.) Gen. Douglas MacArthur – 1942 – The Phillipines

3.) Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones’s character) in the movie “Field of Dreams.”

4.) This is the beginning of Portia’s Soliloquy in Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice.

5.) George Santayana – 1905’s “Reason in Common Sense, p 284, Vol. 1 of The Life of Reason.”

6.) Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson’s character) in the movie “A Few Good Men.”

7.) Good & Plenty TV commercial (Circa 1950s)

8.) George Bernard Shaw – Back to Methuselah – Act I

9.) Henny Youngman – Stand Up Comedian (b. 1906…d. 1998)

10.) William Henry Hickman (b. 1803…d. 1870) – British writer who popularized this proverb traced back to the writings of Thomas Palmer in Teacher’s Manual.

11.) Confucius – Chinese Philosopher (b. 551 BC…d. 479 BC)

12.) Proverb quoted by Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Henry Sprague on January 26, 1900.

13.) Credited to numerous authors (R. W. Emerson, O. W. Holmes, H. D. Thoreau among them) but the earliest appearance of the quote was in the introduction (penned by Albert Jay Nock) of the book “Meditations in Wall Street.”

14.) Franklin Roosevelt, Dec. 8, 1941 following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The line has been misquoted as President Roosevelt actually was referring to Dec. 7, 1941, as the “date that will live in infamy.” It was used as part of his speech to a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress shortly before Congress declared war on Japan to mark the United States involvement in World War II.

15.) The actual quote is, “The fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves,” and it comes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II.

16.) Benjamin Franklin at a meeting of the Continental Congress debating Independence.

17.) St. Jerome…priest, confessor, theologian (b. AD 347, d. AD 420)

18.) Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in January of 1933.

19.) Often attributed to Theodore Geisel … (aka Dr. Seuss)

20.) American novelist, Raymond Chandler

21.) Patrick Henry in a speech given on March 23, 1775, at St. John’s Henrico Parish Church in Richmond, Va.

22.) Farfle, the puppet doglike character in the Nestles Quik commercials of the 1950s-60s.

23.) William Tecumseh Sherman in an 1880 speech to the mayor and councilmen of Atlanta.

24.) First published in Francis Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody” in 1602

25.) Comedian Jimmy Durante often made this quote his signature signoff on his television appearances and hosting gigs in the 1950s and 60s. Comic Sonny King, who worked with Durante once stated in an interview that Mrs. Calabash was actually a referral to Durante’s late wife Jeanne Olson and the name Calabash was chosen to reference Calabasas, Calif., where she was hospitalized in her later years.

(“That’s All Folks” … Porky Pig voiced by Mel Blanc.)

Hope you all aced this one. Have a Great Week, Y’all!!