All Quotes

"You have no mind to be unkind," Said echo in her ear: "No mind to bring a living thing To suffering or fear. For all that's bad, or mean or sad, you have no mind, my dear."

"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."

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

"I charm in vain; for never again, All keenly as my glance I bend, Will Memory, goddess coy, Embody for my joy Departed days, nor let me gaze On thee, my fairy friend!"

"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."

""And at last we've got to the end of this ideal racecourse! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you accept Z." "Do I?" said the Tortoise innocently. "Let's make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to accept Z?" "Then Logic would take you by the throat, and force you to do it!" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would tell you, 'You can't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and D, you must accept Z!' So you've no choice, you see." "Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise. "So enter it in your notebook, please. We will call it (E) If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?" "I see," said Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone."

"But surely you trust God! Do you think He would let you come to harm? To be afraid is to distrust."

"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."

"What may I do?" at length I cried, Tired of the painful task. The fairy quietly replied, And said "You must not ask."

"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."

"The day was wet, the rain fell souse Like jars of strawberry jam, a sound was heard in the old henhouse, A beating of a hammer."

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

"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."

"The rabbits bow before thee, And cower in the straw; The chickens are submissive, And own thy will for law; Bullfinches and canary Thy bidding do obey; And e'en the tortoise in its shell Doth never say thee nay."

"One winter night, at half past nine, Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy, I had come home, too late to dine"

""I've caught a cold," the Thing replies, "Out there upon the landing." I turned to look in some surprise, And there, before my very eyes, A little Ghost was standing!"

"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."

"Yet still to choose a brat like you, To haunt a man of forty-two, Was no great compliment!""

"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."

"That narrow window, I expect, Serves but to let the dusk in - " "But please," said I, "to recollect 'Twas fashioned by an architect Who pinned his faith on Ruskin!"

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

"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."

"My father was a Brownie, Sir; My mother was a Fairy. The notion had occurred to her, The children would be happier, If they were taught to vary. The notion soon became a craze; And, when it once began, she Brought us all out in different ways - One was a Pixy, two were Fays, Another was a Banshee."

"Who's the Knight-Mayor?" I cried. Instead Of answering my question, "Well, if you don't know THAT," he said, "Either you never go to bed, Or you've a grand digestion!"

"He is immensely fat, and so Well suits the occupation: In point of fact, if you must know, We used to call him years ago, THE MAYOR AND CORPORATION!"

"So, to reward him for his run (As it was baking hot, And he was over twenty stone), The King proceeded, half in fun, To knight him on the spot."

"Lady Clara Vere de Vere Was eight years old, she said: Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread."

"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."

"There is an insect that people avoid (Whence is derived the verb 'to flee'). Where have you been by it most annoyed? In lodgings by the Sea."

"From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing;But he opened out the hinges, Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges, Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the Second Book of Euclid."

"Finally my Hiawatha Tumbled all the tribe together, ('Grouped' is not the right expression), And, as happy chance would have it Did at last obtain a picture Where the faces all succeeded: Each came out a perfect likeness.Then they joined and all abused it, Unrestrainedly abused it, As the worst and ugliest picture They could possibly have dreamed of. 'Giving one such strange expressions - Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. Really any one would take us (Any one that did not know us) For the most unpleasant people!' (Hiawatha seemed to think so, Seemed to think it not unlikely.)"

"I NEVER loved a dear Gazelle – Nor anything that cost me much: High prices profit those who sell, but why should I be fond of such?"

"Then proudly smiled that old man To see the eager lad Rush madly for his pen and ink And for his blotting-pad – But, when he thought of publishing, His face grew stern and sad."

"'O gin I find anither ladye,' He said wi' sighs and tears, 'I wot my coortin' sall not be Anither thirty years:'For gin I find a ladye gay, Exactly to my taste, I'll pop the question, aye or nay, In twenty years at maist.'"

"Yet what are all such gaieties to me Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds? x2+7x+53 =11/3."

"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"

"A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile! And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar? And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?"

"The air is bright with hues of light And rich with laughter and with singing: Young hearts beat high in ecstasy, And banners wave, and bells are ringing: But silence falls with fading day, And there's an end to mirth and play. Ah, well-a-day!"

"Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack, Ye little men of little souls! And bid them huddle at your back - Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!Fill all the air with hungry wails - "Reward us, ere we think or write! Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails To sate the swinish appetite!""

"Is all our Life, then, but a dream Seen faintly in the golden gleam Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?Bowed to the earth with bitter woe Or laughing at some raree-show We flutter idly to and fro.Man's little Day in haste we spend, And, from its merry noontide, send No glance to meet the silent end."

"I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story — I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it — but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea' — is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again."

"I believe this thought, of the possibility of death — if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die. But, once realise what the true object is in life — that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds' — but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man — and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!"

"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!" and some "Taxes!", but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted."

"I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that's the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life?"

"He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, 'The bitterness of Life!'"

"He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus: 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be much for us!'"

"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!""

"Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith — the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! "Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!""

"Tony was a true friend of the Irish people. A principled politician and activist, he spoke up passionately for the idea of a united Ireland. He remained an avid supporter of Irish freedom throughout his life."

"He was an absolutely brilliant speaker ... he had such clarity of expression. [He was] a charming, nice man. He made enemies and kept enemies but on the whole most people regarded him with a good degree of affection long before it came to the stage when it was thought he could cause no harm. He was out of step for many years with whoever was in the charge of the leadership. He wanted to make people think and that was an admirable thing."