Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Inspirational Quotes Quiz


Who said it?

1. The art of winning is not in winning, but in winning so that the rest of fleet are pleased you have won.

2. It will give an idea of my approach to sailing when I say I measure distance in bottles of liquor.

3. Training accumulates. It's like money in the bank.

4. Let this be your motto - Rely on yourself!
For, whether the prize be a ribbon or throne,
The victor is he who can go it alone!

5. Success is simply the extension and utilization of an an entire series of failures.

6. Starting a boat in a large fleet is like playing Russian roulette with five bullets instead of one. One mistake and the finish is very quick.

7. In life, as in surfing, there are waves that if you dare to ride them will kill you, and there are waves that will give you the ride of your life... All we are really doing in our short time on this big round ball is paddling around trying to figure out which ones are which.

8. If there is one characteristic which all winners share, it is impatience with, and intolerance for, losing.

9. I had been sailing for years before I realized that most people with boats are liars.

10. Oh what a luxury it be
how exquisite, what perfect bliss
so ordinary yet chic
to pee to piss to take a leak.

A few rules...

a) Answers in the comments please.

b) No using search engines before Friday. See quote #1.

c) Only one answer per person before Friday.

d) One additional answer per person on Friday.

e) Then it's a free-for-all.

Don't be an asshole and spoil the quiz for everyone else by using the Google to answer all the questions within the first hour or two like the first commenter on this quiz.


42 comments:

Baydog said...

Tillerman, you're not an asshole.
You're just highly competitive. We wouldn't have it any other way.

And this does not count as an answer.

Anonymous said...

I could have spoiled that other quiz "by inspection" (as mathematician's say). Help to have had a Scots grandfather (and to actually like haggis).

Steve in Baltimore

Anonymous said...

...and never mind the extraneous apostrophe.

Tillerman said...

Hey, I only used Google a little bit to help me with the details of one or two questions. I know a haggis when I see one. Some of my best friends are haggises. I can see haggis from my house. It helps to have lived next door to some Scottish people for a few years and have celebrated Burns Night with them. Just because I accuse myself of something doesn't mean I'm guilty. Half of what you read on this blog is utter nonsense and the other half is lies.

Anonymous said...

But you didn't know 'Scotch' is redundant if you spell whisky correctly.

BTW, I've never actually celebrated Burns night. My usual venue for feasting on haggis is the Royal Mile Pub in Wheaton, MD. It's a long line to get in there for dinner on a normal night, so I've never tried on Burns night itself.

Steve in Baltimore

Tillerman said...

I admit I made a booboo there but check out the Wikipedia entry on whiskey and whisky.

It seems that there are several kinds of whisky (as opposed to whiskey) as well as Scotch. "The spelling whisky (and plural whiskies) is generally used in Scotland, Wales, Canada, and Japan, while whiskey (and plural whiskeys) is more common in Ireland and the United States. However, the usage is not always consistent."

And apparently although "Scotch" is the internationally recognised term for "Scotch whisky", it is rarely used in Scotland, where the drink is called simply "whisky". So I guess that outside Scotland the "whisky" is redundant, but inside Scotland the "Scotch" is redundant.

Apparently there is also a school of thought that "the spelling difference is simply a matter of local language convention for the spelling of a word, indicating that the spelling will vary depending on the background or personal preferences of the writer (like the difference between color and colour or tire and tyre or recognize and recognise."

Baydog said...

Lately I've grown quite fond of Burbon.

Baydog said...

6. Dr. Stuart Walker

Mike said...

Was no 2 Sir Francis Chichester?

It’s in the same vane as the two quotes of his below in regard to his round the world trip on ‘Gipsy Moth’.

"To the question, "When were your spirits at their loest ebb?
The obvious answer seemed to be, when the gin gave out.”

And

"Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk."

I like no 10 but the others sound far too serious and up their own whatsits for me to care about.

Tillerman said...

Close but no cigar Baydog.

The quotation does appear in one of Doctor Walker's books but he attributes it to another very fine sailor of his generation. Have another guess (or start looking through your Walker books!)

Tillerman said...

Mike, good guess. #2 could easily have been Sir Francis but it wasn't him. It's actually someone who isn't famous as a sailor.

Tim said...

#2 looks like the sort of thing W C Fields would have said.

Tillerman said...

Good point Tim. Not WC Fields. But it is someone who is more known for their humor than their sailing experience. Have another shot.

O Docker said...

Yikes! What did I do before the Google?

These are the only ones I'm sure of:


It will give an idea of my approach to sailing when I say I measure distance in bottles of liquor.
- Joe Rouse

Training accumulates. It's like money in the bank.
- Larry Ellison

Starting a boat in a large fleet is like playing Russian roulette with five bullets instead of one.
- Dick 'Shotgun' Cheney

Success is simply the extension and utilization of an entire series of failures
- Bernard Madoff

Oh what a luxury it be
how exquisite, what perfect bliss
so ordinary yet chic
to pee to piss to take a leak.

- Tillerman

Tillerman said...

Well done O Docker. These are better than the real answers.

Chris Partridge said...

The answer to all the questions is "some old beardie"

Tillerman said...

LOL Chris. Well, I don't think that they all have beards but most of the quotes are from old geezers, some of them dead old geezers.

I'm pretty sure that #3 is the youngest of the bunch. Not an old beardie at all.

Anonymous said...

Cheating a bit, so not posting any answers.

#4 should have been a sailor:
"The words "dutiful" and "pious" never applied to [him]."

no more comments from this part of the peanut gallery about whisky.

Steve in Baltimore

Tillerman said...

Thanks Steve for not revealing the answer, though I'm pretty sure you know it (even if you did cheat!)

I kind of like #4. As a single-handed sailor (and never much of a team player) I appreciate the sentiment in praise of going it alone. There are plenty of platitudes out there about teamwork; not so many that say in the game of life (for which Laser sailing is surely the ultimate metaphor) at the end of the day you have to rely on yourself.

I think the quote is really about Mommy Boats.

Wavedancer said...

No 1. Just a guess, but Elvstrom might have said something like that.

Tillerman said...

Elvstrom did indeed say something with a very similar sentiment to this. And Elvstorm's quote is much more famous than this one. But this wasn't said by Elvstrom. That's why I included this one on the quiz. I thought it was interesting that another famous sailor expressed the same view in different words.

I wonder which one said it first? I haven't been able to date either quote but the originator of quote #1 was born about 30 years before Elvstrom so he may well have been the first.

Noodle said...

1. Uffa Fox?

Tillerman said...

Aaah. At last we have a winner. Quote #1 is indeed by Uffa Fox. The full quote is actually....

“The art of racing is not in winning, but in winning so that the rest of the fleet are pleased you have won, and the only way they can be pleased is for you to have shown better helmsmanship than they and also shown perfect sportsmanship.“

Paul Elvstrom expressed a similar sentiment somewhat more succinctly: “You haven’t won the race, if in winning the race you have lost the respect of your competitors.” This is much better known than the Uffa Fox quote, I think.

I wonder which one was first? Anyone know?

Well done Noodle.

Anonymous said...

#4 was from this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe
who I'd never heard of.
In the course of my blatant cheating, I also came across a quote ABOUT Uffa Fox, from a pub owner:
"There's pirates 'round Cowes at regatta time, and Uffa's the worst of the lot."

Steve in Baltimre

Baydog said...

2. Ted Kennedy

Tillerman said...

Well done Steve in Baltimore.

Quote #4 was indeed from a lesser known 19th century American poet called John Godfrey Saxe. The verse is from a longer poem titled The Game of Life in which Saxes uses Galileo and Kepler as examples of people who were ahead of their time and had to "go it alone."

There is a sailing connection. Stuart Walker's excellent book on Winning: The Psychology of Competition has short inspirational quotes at the head of every chapter. A slightly shorter version of quote #4 is at the start of the chapter on Mental Toughness (which is where I found it.)

Tillerman said...

LOL Baydog. Ted Kennedy was indeed known for enjoying his sailing and a drink or two. But he was not the originator of quote #2.

I don't think this one is going to yield to the sledgehammer of The Google so I may have to give some clues. It's actually by one of my favorite authors so I'm hoping that at least one of my readers will also be familiar with his work.

O Docker said...

Two has been bugging me.

I know I've read the quote somewhere, but Mr. Google hasn't been too helpful. I thought at first it was Robin Knox-Johnston, but apparently not.

Tillerman said...

Well done O Docker. You are correct. #2 was not Robin Knox-Johnston.

O Docker said...

Wow, you really have been seeking out the obscure in this puzzle. I've found three and am stopping there, having decided to let someone else have some fun, too.

3) Abdi Abdirahman, marathon runner, did reply with these words in an interview with Runner's World in October, 2006, but I still think Larry Ellison uttered them first.


5) Bruce C. Ogilvie, Sports Psychologist. His most famous work (which he co-authored with Thomas Tutko) appears to be entitled Problem Athletes and How To Handle Them, which might explain your connection to this quote.


6) has been attributed to George O'Day, Olympic gold medalist sailor who, with Uffa Fox designed the original Daysailor and started O'Day yachts. He was quoted in The Tactics of Small Boat Racing by Stuart Walker, which is where you may have come across it.

I'm going to bed now.

Tillerman said...

Well done O Docker. All three correct.

I didn't seek out the obscure so much as browse through a few books that I happen to own to find some quotes that are sorta kinda relevant to sailing and that might be new to most of my readers. I'm getting tired of hearing everyone's same old Elvstrom and Conner quotes over and over again.

Yes, #3 was made by a runner, not a sailor. Ir was in my 2011 Running Diary. I included it because I think it is just as relevant to sailing. He was talking about how the physical training you do in January and February is "money in the bank" and will pay off in better performances later in the year. As I try to work out a bit more than usual (i.e. a bit more than not at all) this winter I found it somewhat helpful.

I've mentioned before that I own many of Stuart Walker's books. #5 and #6 (like #4 which Steve got right) were from Walker's books. He likes to sprinkle such quotes at the start of each chapter in some of his books.

#4 (the Ogilvie quote about success using a series of failures) was from Winning- The Psychology of Competition at the start of the chapter The Attainment of Competence. Hey, it is a sports psychology book so I guess it's OK to quote a sports psychologist.

And I found #6, the O'Day quote about Russian roulette, In Walker's The Tactics of Small Boat Racing at the beginning of the chapter about Starting at the Leeward End (which if you know anything about racing is often like Russian roulette!)

I think I'll take a leak now.

Tillerman said...

Thanks to O Docker, Noodle and Steve in Baltimore, the originators of five of the quotes have now been solved. I wonder how many more you will get.

If there are any that still manage to outwit you I will reveal a few clues over the weekend. Actually I've already been sprinkling the odd clue around but nobody seems to be realizing it yet. And here are a few more clues...

So, the remaining five are 2,7,8,9 and 10.

Two of these five quotes are actually by the same person, so there are only four names to find.

All four people have published books. Indeed two of them are mainly famous as writers.

One of the authors is not a sailor at all (as far as I know) but his brother was.

One of the authors has worked in the same business as O Docker.

One of the five quotes was also used by Walker to introduce a chapter in one of his books.

One of the four people works not far from where I am now.

Anonymous said...

#7 (again, blatant cheating) is from page 239 of Jimmy Buffet's A Pirate Looks at Fifty.

Steve in Baltimore
(who shortly will join Tillerman in looking at sixty from the wrong side.)

Tillerman said...

Woo Hoo. Steve in Baltimore has another one right.

Geeze, I dropped enough crumbs to lead you all to this one. There was a comment on Captain JP's blog yesterday. And today's Fish on Friday's post here. And Jimmy even had a song about living on a "big round ball."

Well done Steve in Baltimore!

6 down. 4 to go.

I thought this would be the easiest one to solve, but apparently not.

Anonymous said...

by google by way of garrison keillor:
http://books.google.com/books?id=w6liyUeN2nkC&pg=PT195&lpg=PT195&dq=Oh+what+a+luxury+it+be+how+exquisite,+what+perfect+bliss+so+ordinary+yet+chic+to+pee+to+piss+to+take+a+leak&source=bl&ots=Vav-flZrGq&sig=iVtfNo8e_OgXlteSshj9KNbay9A&hl=en&ei=oHpDTc2EG4_4gAeT89W4AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Guy W Longchamps
another guy(ha) I've never heard of.

Steve in Baltimore

Tillerman said...

I did find #10 in Garrison Keillor's book We Are Still Married in a section title Good Poems.

But here's a mystery. In this edition there is no credit of the poem to Guy W. Longchamps and no acknowledgement to such a source anywhere else I could find in that book. So I assumed the poem was by Keillor himself.

In the book that Steve found in Google Books which is edited by Keillor and called "Good Poems" this poem appears credited to Guy W. Longchamps. There is also a brief note in this book that Mr. Longchamps is the "manager of Brock's Soda Fountain in Anoka and a driver on the Anoka-Minneapolis bus line."

A Google search on "Keillor Longchamps" turns up one reference that the Copyright Claimant to Good Poems is "Garrison Keillor (Guy W. Longchamps, pseud.)"

So is Longchamps a pseudonym of Keillor's? Or a character he has created (which comes to much the same thing)? Or a real person?

I feel like this may be an inside joke and I'm the outsider.

Anyway, the quote is only the first few lines of a longer poem (called O What a Luxury in my book) that is a moving ode to the pleasures of urination.

Baydog said...

Man, I gotta take a leak. But when I get back, Steve, you need to get yourself a profile so you can stop typing "Steve in Baltimore". BTW, I love Baltimore.

O Docker said...

Googling, I came across this wonderfully flowing verse much the same way - in Keillor's book - and immediately began to suspect this was another of his pseudonyms - like Guy Noir.

Longchamps was a famous New York City restaurant chain that was, apparently, pretty snooty in the '30s, but fell on hard times after the war (when its owner was jailed for massive tax evasion). The name came from a famous horse racing track in Paris.

I think the 'Longchamps' reference would have been obvious to any New Yorker.

Anonymous said...

Still thinking about #8.

Did find that the hint, "One of the authors is not a sailor at all (as far as I know) but his brother was."

refers to Garrison Keillor, whose late brother Philip was a sailor.

Steve
still clueless in Baltimore

Tillerman said...

Steve, #8 was Garry Hoyt. I dropped so many clues in the comments to my post Life Without a Brain that someone eventually got it.

Anonymous said...

At least someone I've heard of.

Steve

Anonymous said...

#10. I found the poem here:

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/19990605/pee.htm

and it indicates that it is by Keillor.

Thanks Tillerman because of you I finally found that poem again. I have been trying to find it for ages.

C. from Germany

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