“There was once a young man of Oporta,
Who daily got shorter and shorter,
The reason he said
Was the hod on his head
Which was filled with the heaviest mortar.”

Melodies No. 3
Useful and Instructive Poetry (1845)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There was once a young man of Oporta, Who daily got shorter and shorter, The reason he said Was the hod on his head …" by Lewis Carroll?
Lewis Carroll photo
Lewis Carroll 241
English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer 1832–1898

Related quotes

Elizabeth I of England photo

“I will make you shorter by the head.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Response to Parliament (October 1566).

Francis Bacon photo
E. B. White photo

“It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

"Intimations" (December 1941)
One Man's Meat (1942)
Context: Before you can be an internationalist you have first to be a naturalist and feel the ground under you making a whole circle. It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members. A club, moreover, or a nation, has a most attractive offer to make: it offers the right to be exclusive. There are not many of us who are physically constituted to resist this strange delight, this nourishing privilege. It is at the bottom of all fraternities, societies, orders. It is at the bottom of most trouble. The planet holds out no such inducement. The planet is everybody's. All it offers is the grass, the sky, the water, the ineluctable dream of peace and fruition.

Leon Trotsky photo
Emily Dickinson photo

“Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity”

712: Because I could not stop for Death —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

George Bird Evans photo

“If a man’s life is not long enough, a dog’s is even shorter and anything you can do to make that fuller is worthwhile.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

The Upland Shooting Life (1971)

Janusz Korwin-Mikke photo

“By the way, a shorter man earns less than a tall man. The blonde earns more than a brunette. They are different, and it should not be equalised. That’s all.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

Source: Good Morning Britain, 08 March 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NEqlfWSOrQ

Cassandra Clare photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Harry Chapin photo

Related topics