Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come…
Quote
Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
The story behind this quote
The line comes in chapter XII of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, at the trial of the Knave of Hearts, accused of stealing the Queen’s tarts. The White Rabbit produces new evidence: a set of verses, unsigned and not in the prisoner’s handwriting. For the King, this only makes matters worse; for the Queen, it proves the Knave’s guilt. Alice protests that they don’t even know what the verses are about. The Rabbit puts on his spectacles and asks where he should begin; the King answers “gravely”.
The advice is perfectly logical and perfectly useless, like much of Wonderland’s wisdom. The verses that follow are pure nonsense, yet the King finds meaning in them. The trial ends when the Queen demands the sentence before the verdict, and Alice wakes from her dream.
Lewis Carroll, the pen name of the Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson, first told the story to the young Liddell sisters on a boat trip in 1862. The book appeared in 1865, illustrated by John Tenniel.
The source
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter XII (the King of Hearts), 1865
Checked word for word in the work itself.
More quotes by Lewis Carroll
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Author
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematics lecturer at Oxford, wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass as Lewis Carroll. Their logic games and nonsense verse delight readers of every age.
Quotes by Lewis Carroll