Lewis Carroll Quotes

355 Sourced Quotes

'If everybody minded their own business,' said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, 'the world would go round a good deal faster than it does.'

Lewis Carroll
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Lewis Carroll
The patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable — "Found what?" said the Duck. "Found it," the Mouse replied, rather crossly: "of course you know what 'it' means." "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck: "it's generally a frog, or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?"

Lewis Carroll
As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unaquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood--a circumstance at all times unpleasant.

Lewis Carroll
"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself as she wandered in the woods, "is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan." It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt; the only difficulty was that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it.

Lewis Carroll
If only I could manage, without annoyance to my family, to get imprisoned for 10 years, "without hard labour," and with the use of books and writing materials, it would be simply delightful!

Lewis Carroll
I wish I dared dispense with all costume. Naked children are so perfectly pure and lovely; but Mrs. Grundy would be furious - it would never do.

Lewis Carroll
Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread --
A trifle, if you please.

Lewis Carroll
I should like the whole race of nurses to be abolished: children should be with their mother as much as possible, in my opinion.

Lewis Carroll
It may be right to go ahead, I guess: It may be right to stop, I do confess; Also, it may be right to retrogress.

Lewis Carroll
One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.

Lewis Carroll
There is so much written Science that no living person has ever read: and there is so much thought-out Science that hasn't yet been written.

Lewis Carroll
My hand moves because certain forces — electric, magnetic, or whatever "nerve-force" may prove to be — are impressed on it by my brain. This nerve-force, stored in the brain, would probably be traceable, if Science were complete, to chemical forces supplied to the brain by the blood, and ultimately derived from the food I eat and the air I breathe.

Lewis Carroll
"How is bread made?" "I know that!" Alice cried eagerly. "You take some flour "Where do you pick the flower?" the White Queen asked. "In a garden or in the hedges?" "Well, it isn't picked at all," Alice explained: "it's ground — " "How many acres of ground?" said the White Queen. "You mustn't leave out so many things."

Lewis Carroll
"She can't do Subtraction." said the White Queen. "Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife-what's the answer to that?" "I suppose-" Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. "Bread-and-butter, of course."

Lewis Carroll
"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.

Lewis Carroll
"Look on the branch above your head," said the Gnat, "and there you'll find a Snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy." "And what does it live on?" Alice asked, as before. "Frumenty and mince-pie," the Gnat replied; "and it makes its nest in a Christmas-box."

Lewis Carroll
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.

Lewis Carroll
I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to a word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, "Let it be understood that by the word 'black' I shall always mean 'white,' and by the word 'white' I shall always mean 'black,'" I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I think it.

Lewis Carroll
Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish, game or any other dish? Who would not give all else for two pennyworth of beautiful soup?

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

Lewis Carroll
"And on the dead level our pace is — ?" the younger suggested; for he was weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.

Lewis Carroll
Death is always sad, I suppose, to us who look forward to it: I expect it will seem very different when we can look back upon it.

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

Lewis Carroll
"You see," he went on after a pause, "it's as well to be provided for everything. That's the reason the horse has anklets around his feet." "But what are they for?" Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. "To guard against the bite of sharks," the Knight replied.

Lewis Carroll
"I know what you're thinking about," said Tweedledum; "but it isn't so, nohow." "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Lewis Carroll
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.

Lewis Carroll
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.

Lewis Carroll
I wish I could manage to be glad! Only I never can remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this wood, and being glad whenever you like!

Lewis Carroll
As life draws nearer to its end, I feel more and more clearly that it will not matter in the least, at the last day, what form of religion a man has professed-nay, that many who have never even heard of Christ, will in that day find themselves saved by His blood.

Lewis Carroll