Lewis Carroll Quotes

Come, my child," I said, trying to lead her away. "Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries." "Good-bye, poor hare!" Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child. "Oh, my darling, my darling!" she moaned, over and over again. "And God meant your life to be so beautiful!

I don't want to take up literature in a money-making spirit, or be very anxious about making large profits, but selling it at a loss is another thing altogether, and an amusement I cannot well afford.

Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be it would. You see?

I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.

But then, shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way -- never to be an old woman -- but then -- always to have lessons to learn!

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.

"Can you do Addition?" the White Queen said. "What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?" "I don't know," said Alice. "I lost count." "She can't do Addition," the Red Queen interrupted.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes.

Here is a golden Rule.... Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyedthis Rule!

'Speak when you're spoken to!' The Queen sharply interrupted her. 'But if everybody obeyed that rule,' said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, 'and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that - ' 'Ridiculous!' cried the Queen. 'Why, don't you see, child - ' here she broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly changed the subject of the conversation.

"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."

Consider anything, only don’t cry!

You know," he (Tweedledee) added very gravely, "it's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle--to get one's head cut off." pg. 199

In some ways, you know, people that don't exist, are much nicer than people that do.

One of the deepest motives (as you are aware) in the human beast (so deep that many have failed to detect it) is Alliteration.

There's nothing a well-regulated child hates so much as regularity. I believe a really healthy boy would thoroughly enjoy Greek Grammar--if only he might stand on his head to learn it!

To me it seems that to give happiness is a far nobler goal that to attain it: and that what we exist for is much more a matter of relations to others than a matter of individual progress: much more a matter of helping others to heaven than of getting there ourselves.

One! two! and through and through The vorpal blade went snickersnack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.

So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.

This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out That the Captain they trusted so well Had only one notion for crossing the ocean, And that was to tingle his bell.

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." "I don't much care where –" "Then it doesn't matter which way you go.

The Red Queen shook her head. "You may call it 'nonsense' if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!

Abstract qualities begin With capitals alway: The True, the Good, the Beautiful- Those are the things that pay!

Do you suppose she's a wildflower?

When all has been considered, it seems to me to be the irresistible intuition that infinite punishment for finite sin would be unjust, and therefore wrong. We feel that even weak and erring Man would shrink from such an act. And we cannot conceive of God as acting on a lower standard of right and wrong.

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today.

But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's ahrdly enough of me left to make one respectable person!

Alice: "How long is forever?" White Rabbit: "Sometimes, just one second."

Forbid the day when vivisection shall be practised in every college and school, and when the man of science, looking forth over a world which will then own no other sway than his, shall exult in the thought that he has made of this fair earth, if not a heaven, at least a hell for animals.

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

I have proved by actual trial that a letter, that takes an hour to write, takes only about 3 minutes to read!

What does it matter where my body happens to be?' he said. 'My mind goes on working all the same.

Off with their heads!

I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.

My view of life is, that it's next to impossible to convince anybody of anything.

Five o'clock tea" is a phrase our "rude forefathers," even of the last generation, would scarcely have understood, so completelyis it a thing of to-day; and yet, so rapid is the March of the Mind, it has already risen into a national institution, and rivals, in its universal application to all ranks and ages, and as a specific for "all the ills that flesh is heir to," the glorious Magna Charta.

If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an agent very opposite to that of heat.

First, I hate all theological controversy: it is wearing to the temper, and is I believe (at all events when viva voce) worse than useless.

Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea? Alice: Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more. March Hare: Ah, you mean you can't very well take less. Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing.

'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things: of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings.'

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit." "Perhaps it hasn't one," Alice ventured to remark. "Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.

May we not then sometimes define insanity as an inability to distinguish which is the waking and which the sleeping life? We often dream without the least suspicion of unreality: 'Sleep hath its own world', and it is often as lifelike as the other.