Lewis Carroll · 96 pages
Rating: (116K votes)
“How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.”
“And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?”
“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”
“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”
The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
“That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: "because they lessen from day to day.”
“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.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough.”
“Alice thought to herself "I don't see how he can ever finish, if he doesn't begin.”
“I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”
“Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”
“at any rate, there's no harm in trying.”
“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.”
“if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.”
“but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.”
“I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,' said Alice a little timidly: 'but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
“I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
“Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!”
“If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”
“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.”
“I wish I hadn't cried so much!”
“How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!”
“Dear, dear! 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!”
“flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock together.”
“How long is forever?
Sometimes just one second”
“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and”
“Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
“no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather sharply; 'I advise you to leave off this minute!”
“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.”
“either the locks were too large, or the key was too small,”
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.”
“her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words 'DRINK ME,' but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. 'I know SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself, 'whenever I eat or drink anything; so I'll just see what this bottle does.”
“course. For in some blind, dualistic way both she and Asa insisted, as do all religionists, in disassociating God from harm and error and misery, while granting Him nevertheless supreme control. They would seek for something else—some malign, treacherous, deceiving power which, in the face of God’s omniscience and omnipotence, still beguiles and betrays—and find it eventually in the error and perverseness of the human heart, which God has made, yet which He does not control, because He does not want to control it.”
“With me, it was my liver that was out of order. […] I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind."
What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.”
“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph. —ELIE WIESEL from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code”
“Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence.”
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
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