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"When I use a word ' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' 'The question is ' said Alice 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is ' said Humpty Dumpty 'which is to be master - that's all.'"
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Exlpore more Language quotes
"Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin."
"The dream vocabulary shaves meanings finer and closer than do the world's daytime dictionaries."
"I liked, as I like still, to make words look self-conscious and foolish, to bind them by mock marriage of a pun, to turn them inside out, to come upon them unawares. What is this jest in majesty? This ass in passion? How do god and devil combine to form a live dog?"
"She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else."
"A dog is der Hund the dog; a women is die Frau the wom[an]; a horse is das Pferd, the horse; now you put that dog in the Genitive case, & is he the same dog he was before? No sir; he is das Hundes; put him in the Dative case & what is he? Why, he is dem Hund. Now you snatch him into the accusative case & how is it with him? Why he is den Hunden? ... Read moreBut suppose he happens to be twins & you have to pluralize him, what then? Why sir they'll swap that twin dog around thro' the four cases till he'll think he's an entire International Dog Show all in his own person. I don't like dogs, but I wouldn't treat a dog like that. I wouldn't even treat a borrowed dog that way."
"Greek was very much a live language, and a language still unconscious of grammar, not, like ours, dominated by definitions and trained upon dictionaries."
Explore more quotes by Lewis Carroll
"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!"
"In most gardens", the Tiger-lily said, "they make the beds too soft-so that the flowers are always asleep."
"One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."
"Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. '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."
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