Quotes to inspire and reflect

‘That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: ‘because they lessen from day to day.’

‘Will you walk a little faster?’ said a whiting to a snail.

Everything’s got a moral, if you can only find it.

Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.

‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on. ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’ ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘Why, you might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see!” ‘

This time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

‘If everybody minded their own business,’ said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, ‘the world would go round a good deal faster than it does.’

He only does it to annoy,

‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,

EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes.

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice.

How doth the little crocodile

If Jesus Christ were to come to-day, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.

‘What is the use of a book’, thought Alice,

Gad! she’d better!

A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.

Man is a tool-using animal … Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

The everlasting No.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

Captains of industry.

A Parliament speaking through reporters to Buncombe and the twenty-seven millions mostly fools.

The Dismal Science.

The true University of these days is a collection of books.

France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.

History a distillation of rumour.

The seagreen Incorruptible.

A whiff of grapeshot.

‘Genius’ (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all).

To the very last he [Napoleon] had a kind of idea; that, namely, of La carrière ouverte aux talents, The tools to him that can handle them.

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gunpowder, Printing, and the Protestant Religion.

Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.

In epochs when cash payment has become the sole nexus of man to man.

Ask me no more where Jove bestows,

A witty statesman said, you might prove anything by figures.

Other voices, other rooms.

Here lies a king, that ruled as he thought fit The universal monarchy of wit.

Without work, all life goes rotten, but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.

What I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport. often quoted as ‘ … I owe to football’

Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a human heart. One must imagine that Sisyphus is happy.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness.

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.