You’ve likely heard of Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Caroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1865 and has inspired many spin-offs, including a Disney movie and several live action movies.
If you love Alice in Wonderland, or haven’t read it (yet!) and want to whet your appetite, here are 15 of our favorite Alice in Wonderland quotes.
“But that’s just the trouble with me. I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.” —Chapter 1, Alice
“For if one drinks much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it’s almost certain to disagree with one sooner or later.” —Chapter 1, Alice
“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!” —Chapter 1, Alice
“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” —Chapter 3, The Eaglet
“The best way to explain it is to do it.” —Chapter 3, The Dodo
“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!” —Chapter 4, Alice
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly, sir . . . for I can’t understand it myself to begin with.” —Chapter 5, Alice
“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.” —Chapter 6
“If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said, in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.” —Chapter 6, the Duchess
“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—”
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. —Chapter 7
“I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.” —Chapter 9, Alice
“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” —Chapter 9, the Duchess
“And the moral of that is—‘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.’” —Chapter 9, the Duchess
And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”
“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.
“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.” —Chapter 9
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” —Chapter 12, The King of Hearts
Alice in Wonderland is in the public domain, so you can grab an ebook copy of it for free here.
What is your favorite Alice in Wonderland quote? Let us know in the comments below!
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