Read the best Alice in Wonderland quotes by Lewis Carroll that have inspired readers, young and old, for generations, and enter a whimsical fantasy world in your mind.
You’ll hear classic book quotes from your favorite characters, including the young girl Alice, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the King of Hearts, the March Hare, the Caterpillar, and more. These characters share Alice in Wonderland book quotes about themes like time, growing up, being mad, and more.
It may seem like Alice in Wonderland (also known as “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”) is a popular children’s book only for the young, but it’s also a legendary tale for the young at heart (in other words — all ages). Why? It’s “curiously” crafted with riddles and wordplay, and it also imparts very deeply profound wisdom through its wildly eccentric characters and strange creatures, fantastical scenarios, and Alice’s journey of self-discovery.
Each page is a reflection on life, identity, knowledge, reality, and the power of imagination, which is why it’s so incumbent on us to review all the most inspirational Alice in Wonderland quotes in more detail.
In fact, because the words are so profound, I recommend reading Alice in Wonderland in print or digital format, not audio. I first listened on audio and missed a lot of the most intricately written wisdom. Better yet, grab an illustrated copy and fully immerse yourself in a memorable story that’s unlike any other.
(My personal favorite edition is the beautifully illustrated and interactive MinaLima edition.)
Alice in Wonderland Quotes
Below are all the best Alice in Wonderland quotes, including famous quotes, short quotes, love quotes, and more!
Famous Quotes
“We’re all mad here.”
“Curiouser and curiouser!”
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Love Quotes
“Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes the world go round!”
Short Quotes
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
“[I]t’s always tea time.”
“I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.”
“You must be, [mad] or you wouldn’t have come here.”
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.”
“And what is the use of a book […] without pictures or conversations?”
“Off with their heads!”
“Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!”
“I’m older than you, and must know better.”
“[If it’s the oldest rule in the book] then it ought to be Number One.”
“Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.”
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited.”
“Haste makes waste, so I rarely hurry.”
“A dream is not reality but who’s to say which is which?”
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir, […] because I am not myself, you see.”
“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”
“Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
“If you don’t think, you shouldn’t talk.”
“I wish creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!”
“I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so much!”
“Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”
“We called him Tortoise because he taught us.”
“Begin at the beginning […] and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
“Why, the best way to explain it is to do it.”
“If you knew Time as well as I do […] you wouldn’t talk about wasting it.”
More Alice in Wonderland Quotes
“The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.”
“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”
“She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it).”
“It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.'”
“But it’s no use now […] to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person.”
“If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
“How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night?”
“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!”
“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
“How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.”
“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin […] but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!”
“It’s really dreadful […] the way all the creatures argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!”
“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.”
“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”
“I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!”
“If everybody minded their own business, […] the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”
“For if one drinks much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it’s almost certain to disagree with one sooner or later.”
“Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.”
Frequently Asked Questions
In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, the Cheshire Cat has many famous lines, the most notorious among them being the often-quoted sentence, “We’re all mad here.”
The first line of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is: “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting next to her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without any pictures or conversations?'”
In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Duchess mentions morals more than once, most notably stating, “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The White Queen famously says, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Mad Hatter says, “If you knew Time as well as I do… you wouldn’t talk about wasting it.”
In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, when Alice wakes up, she says, “Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!”
Conclusion
Now that you know all the most inspirational Alice in Wonderland quotes, it’s time to take a step back through the looking glass and into our “real world,” but this time with deeper wisdom about life that we learned from a very whimsical world. As you navigate the rabbit holes of your own life, remember the power of imagination, the importance of self-belief, and the magic of just a little bit of madness.
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