Truth Be Told Trivia Quiz

Answer: Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was twice Prime Minister of the UK (1940-45 and 1951-55). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 "... for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."

Answer: Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde is the only Irishman of those listed, I hope that was a good hint. He led an interesting and controversial life, and was imprisoned for two years toward the end. Upon gaining his freedom in 1897, he abandoned Ireland and travelled to Europe under the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth. He died destitute in Paris in 1900.

Answer: George Orwell

George Orwell was the pen name of Eric A. Blair. Orwell was a dedicated democratic socialist, strongly opposed to totalitarianism which he saw in his life under Fascist and Soviet rule and which he wrote about in "1984" and "Animal Farm".

Answer: Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso spent the first 20 or so years of his life in his native Spain, but the remainder of his 91 years were spent largely in France. One of his most famous paintings is "Guernica", showing the bombing of civilians during the Spanish Civil War in 1937 - a great example of a "lie" that enables the truth.

Answer: Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain) was born in a year when Halley's Comet appeared. In 1909 he wrote "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet.

The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'" Twain indeed died in 1910, the day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

Answer: George Carlin

George Carlin earned a citation from the FCC when his famous routine "Filthy Words" was played on a prime time radio show. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the speech was indecent and the FCC had the right to prohibit the broadcast at a time when children were likely to hear it.

Answer: Voltaire

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) is a preeminent figure of the Enlightenment. A prolific writer on many subjects, his works advocating freedom of religion, the separation of church and state and freedom of speech inspired the American and French revolutions, among others.

Answer: M.K. Gandhi

Gandhi's first name is Mohandas; the more familiar Mahatma is an honorific title than means "venerable" in Sanskrit. He first earned this title in South Africa in 1914 for his work to improve the civil rights of the Indian residents of that country.

Answer: George Washington

Perhaps this is a better statement of George Washington's morals than the alleged incident with the cherry tree. Biographer Parson Weems first collected the cherry tree anecdote after Washington's death, reportedly from older persons who knew the youthful George. Parson reports the climax of this story as: "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet." "Run to my arms, you dearest boy," cried his father in transports, "run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold."

Answer: William Blake

William Blake was better appreciated after his death than he was while he was actively painting and writing. Blake was described by William Rossetti, a writer and critic who was prominent decades after Blake died, as "... a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."