No, no! said the Queen. Sentence first – verdict afterwards.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Yet what are all such gaieties to me whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Mathematics
Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Belief
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where,” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Goals
There comes a pause, for human strength will not endure to dance without cessation; and everyone must reach the point at length of absolute prostration.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Dance, Dancing
And thus they give the time, that Nature meant for peaceful sleep and meditative snores, to ceaseless din and mindless merriment and waste of shoes and floors.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Nature
Reeling and writhing, of course to begin with, Mock Turtle replied, “and the different branches of arithmetic—ambition, distraction, uglification and derision.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Education
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don’t know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn’t matter.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Goals
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Cats
“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, never forget!” “You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Remorse, Repentance, Regret, Adversity
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go till you come to the end; then stop.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
I’d give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life’s decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer day.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Childhood
The time has come, the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Photography is my one recreation and I think it should be done well.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Photography
Theres the Kings Messenger. Hes in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesnt begin until next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all. Suppose he never commits the crime? said Alice. That would be all the better, wouldnt it? the Queen said.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Communication
If everybody minded their own business, the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Risk, Success
Who in the world am I?. Ah, that’s the great puzzle.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Self-Discovery, Discovery
A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed—Now if you’re ready, Oysters, dear,
We can begin to feed!
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Eating
I’m very brave generally, he went on in a low voice: only today I happen to have a headache.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Bravery, Courage
When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don’t state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Imagination, Writing
Be what you would seem to be—or, if you’d like it put more simply—never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Hypocrisy
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Imagination, Memories
Write that down, the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Justice
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and what is the use of a book thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Topics: Books
There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents … and only one for birthday presents, you know.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Benjamin Whichcote British Religious Figure
- Laurence Sterne Irish Anglican Novelist
- John Wilkins British Clergyman, Scholar
- Rudyard Kipling British Children’s Books Writer
- Bertrand A. Russell British Philosopher, Mathematician
- William Ralph Inge English Anglican Clergyman
- Frances Ridley Havergal English Anglican Poet
- William Cowper English Anglican Poet
- George Herbert Welsh Anglican Poet
- Arthur C. Clarke English Science-fiction Writer
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