“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.”
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
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Lewis Carroll241
English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer 1832–1898Related quotes
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 200
Nicholas Barr (1943) British economist
Source: Economics Of The Welfare State (Fourth Edition), Chapter 15, Conclusion, p. 354
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)
January 1854
Notebooks, The English Notebooks (1853 - 1858)
Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer
Source: The Burning Page (2016), Chapter 6 (pp. 64-65)
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
The last sentence is a quotation of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: Would that all excellent books were foundlings, without father or mother, that so it might be, we could glorify them, without including their ostensible authors. Nor would any true man take exception to this; — least of all, he who writes, — "When the Artist rises high enough to achieve the Beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality."
“So might we die, not envying them that live;
So would we die, not unrevenged all.”
Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet
Noi morirem, né invidia avremo ai vivi:
Noi morirem, ma non morremo inulti.
Canto II, stanza 86 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
“Logic cannot comprehend love; so much the worse for logic.”
N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop
Source: Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
“If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.”
Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist
Sudden Death (1983)
Variant: "If the World Made Sense, Men Would Ride Sidesaddle" was the title of a 1993 one-man comedy by Ed Navis, performed at Wings Theatre, New York.
Variant: If the world were a logical place, then men would ride side-saddle.