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Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll Quotes

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Famous Lewis Carroll Quotes

“It's a great huge game of chess that's being played--all over the world--if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join--though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.”

IfsKnowsWorldLifeShouldMindMightCoursesGamesFunWishHugeChessQueensPawnsBeing Played
Book:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
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“If doubtful whether to end with "yours faithfully," or "yours truly," or "yours most truly," &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach "yours affectionately"), refer to your correspondent's last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!”

IfsEndsFactsLastsLettersHarmVarietyFriendlyShadeDozenDoubtfulWinding Up
Book:Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing
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“And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl Brimming over with quivering curds!”

HeartMy HeartBowls
Book:The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll With All the Original Illustrations + The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll: All the Novels, Stories and Poems: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland + Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There + Sylvie and Bruno + A Tangled Tale + What the Tortoise Said to Achilles + Puzzles from Wonderland + The Hunting of the Snark and much more
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“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.”

MindAgeLastsFiveGenerationsUnderstoodUniversalInstitutionsFleshTeaClockPhrasesGloriousMarchApplicationRudeRapidsRivalsRisenHeirsForefathers
Author:Lewis Carroll
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“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.”

IfsThinkingMeanBookUseBlackWhiteAcceptingUnderstoodLikesPhrasesRuling
Book:Symbolic Logic: Elementary
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“When I come upon anything-in Logic or in any other hard subject-that entirely puzzles me, I find it a capital plan to talk it over, aloud, even when I am all alone. One can explain things so clearly to one's self! And then, you know, one is so patient with one's self: one never gets irritated at one's own stupidity!”

KnowsSelfHardPlansSubjectsLogicPatientStupidityPuzzlesAll AloneIrritated
Book:Symbolic Logic: {Complete & Illustrated}
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“Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates... Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified men now existing, boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits, by assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled.”

MenHouseWealthLordSonTypeThousandIllusionTwentiesAssumingConvictionMeritDecentThievesFoundersGreedySnakesBoastPirateGoatsAntiquityDescentFilthyLeopardsSwineJackalsHouse Of Lords
Author:Lewis Carroll
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“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.”

WorldMaySometimesDreamSleepInsanityWakingSuspicionInabilityUnreality
Book:Lewis Carroll's Diaries: Containing Journal 4, January to December 1856
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“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.”

IfsHas BeensSeemsMightImaginationImagineIdentityMight Have BeenWonderlandAlice Adventures In WonderlandDuchessAlice In Wonderland AliceAlice In Wonderland Tea
Book:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
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