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Lewis Carroll Quotes
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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon, and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, which includes the poem "Jabberwocky", and the poem The Hunting of the Snark – all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic and fantasy. There are societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life.

✵ 27. January 1832 – 14. January 1898
Lewis Carroll photo
Lewis Carroll: 241   quotes 302   likes

Lewis Carroll Quotes

“Here is a golden Rule to begin with. Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyed this Rule! A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly.”

Lewis Carroll

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

World

“Oh, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea.”

Lewis Carroll

Canto 4, "Hys Nouryture"
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Time , Tea

“And so it fell upon a day,
(That is, it never rose again)”

Lewis Carroll

Lays of Sorrow No.1
The Rectory Umbrella

“If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics – it does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, so long as there is enough of them.”

Lewis Carroll

Three Years in a Curatorship, By One Whom It Has Tried, 1886

Confidence , Intelligence

“A change came o'er my Vision - it was night:
We clove a pathway through a frantic throng:
The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright:
The chariots whirled along.

Within a marble hall a river ran -
A living tide, half muslin and half cloth:
And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan,
Yet swallowed down her wrath”

Lewis Carroll

Four Riddles, no. I
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Change , Clothes , Night

“Port-wine, he says, when rich and sound,
Warms his old bones like nectar:
And as the inns, where it is found,
Are his especial hunting-ground,
We call him the INN-SPECTRE.”

Lewis Carroll

Of "Inspector Kobold", a spectre
Canto 3, "Scarmoges"
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Wine

“There are certain things - as, a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three -
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the Sea.”

Lewis Carroll

A Sea Dirge, st.1
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Hate , Sea

“All in the waning light she stood,
The star of perfect womanhood.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Three Sunsets (1861), st. 1
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Star , Light , Perfection

“Now that's a thing I WILL NOT STAND,
And so I tell you flat.”

Lewis Carroll

Canto 3
Phantasmagoria (1869)

“The `Why?' cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child's mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child's smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from GOD's hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love--for I think a child's first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love's sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet if one can put forth all one's powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child's whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child's pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.”

Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1886), Introduction, p. v

Love , Life , God , Books

“All too soon will Childhood gay
Realise Life's sober sadness.
Let's be merry while we may,
Innocent and happy Fay!
Elves were made for gladness!”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Puck Lost and Found (1891)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Life , Sadness , Childhood , Happiness

“The light was faint, and soft the air
That breathed around the place;
And she was lithe, and tall, and fair,
And with a wayward grace
Her queenly head she bare.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Stolen Waters (1862), st. 1
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Light

“Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes:
But the name of the secret is Love!”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

Source: Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), Chapter 19: A Fairy Duet

Love , Secret

“As you have invited me, I cannot come, for I have made a rule to decline all invitations; but I will come the next day.”

Lewis Carroll

Quoted in Beatrice Hatch, "Lewis Carroll", Strand Magazine (April 1898), p. 422

“An island-farm — broad seas of corn
Stirred by the wandering breath of morn —
The happy spot where I was born.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

Faces in the Fire (1860), st. 2
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Sea , Happiness

“And as to being in a fright,
Allow me to remark
That Ghosts have just as good a right
In every way, to fear the light,
As Men to fear the dark.”

Lewis Carroll

Canto 1
Phantasmagoria (1869)

Men , Fear , Way , Light

“If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully”, or “yours truly”, or “your 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!”

Lewis Carroll

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

“To Her, whose children's smiles fed the narrator's fancy and were his rich reward: from the Author.”

Lewis Carroll

Inscribed in Mrs. Lorina Liddell's copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground; quoted by Edward Wakeling http://www.wakeling.demon.co.uk/page3-real-lewiscarroll.htm

Children , Smile

“Less Bread! More Taxes!--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted (as well as I could make out) "Who roar for the Sub-Warden?" Everybody roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly appear: some were shouting "Bread!"”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

and some "Taxes!", but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted.
Opening lines
Sylvie and Bruno (1889)

People , Appearance

“I mark this day with a white stone.”

Lewis Carroll

19 December 1863; he frequently used this or a similar phrase for especially notable days.
Diaries

“The West is the fitting tomb for all the sorrow and the sighing, all the errors and the follies of the Past: for all its withered Hopes and all its buried Loves! From the East comes new strength, new ambition, new Hope, new Life, new Love! Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

Source: Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Chapter 25 : Looking Eastward

Love , Life , Hope , Error

“O bitter is it to abide
In weariness alway:
At dawn to sigh for eventide,
At eventide for day.
Thy noon hath fled: thy sun hath shone:
The brightness of thy day is gone:
What need to lag and linger on
Till life be cold and gray?”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Valley of the Shadow of Death (1868)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Life , Sun

“Went to the new Church both morning and afternoon, and read service in the afternoon. I got through it all with great success, till I came to read out the first verse of the hymn before the sermon, where the two words ‘strife strengthened,’ coming together, were too much for me, and I had to leave the verse unfinished.”

Lewis Carroll

31 August 1862
Diaries

Reading , Success

“Fair stands the ancient Rectory,
The Rectory of Croft,
The sun shines bright upon it,
The breezes whisper soft.
From all the house and garden
Its inhabitants come forth,
And muster in the road without,
And pace in twos and threes about,
The children of the North.”

Lewis Carroll

Lays of Sorrow No. 2, opening lines
The Rectory Umbrella

Children , Sun , Housing

“What may I do?”

Lewis Carroll

at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask."
My Fairy
Useful and Instructive Poetry (1845)

“If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics”

Lewis Carroll

it does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, so long as there is enough of them.
Three Years in a Curatorship, By One Whom It Has Tried, 1886

Self-confidence , Confidence