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What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?
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“What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”

Lewis Carroll

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Source
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Date
1865
Local voice
Reported speaker · Alice (thought)
Meaning

Meaning of “What is the use of a book without…”

Alice judges a book by the kinds of things that keep a child engaged, making the line both playful and a useful reminder that reading is experiential.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 1; Alice thinks about the book her sister is reading before the White Rabbit appears.

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Speaker context

Why the local voice matters

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 1; Alice thinks about the book her sister is reading before the White Rabbit appears.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

BookCuriosityFunnyReadingShortWriting
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Source identified
Brevity is the soul of wit.
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“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

William Shakespeare · Hamlet · c. 1600
Voice: Fictional character · Polonius
Meaning & context

The line praises compression: saying less can sharpen meaning when the words that remain do real work.

Source details

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2; Polonius says this while promising the King and Queen he will be brief, immediately before continuing at comic length. The dramatic irony is part of the line’s context.

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To a poet nothing can be useless.
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“To a poet nothing can be useless.”

Samuel Johnson · Rasselas · 1759
Voice: Fictional character · Imlac
Meaning & context

Creative attention turns a wide range of experience into material; knowledge that seems unrelated can later supply images, comparisons or instruction.

Source details

Rasselas, Chapter X; spoken by Imlac in his account of learning the poet’s craft through broad observation.

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Of making many books there is no end.
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“Of making many books there is no end.”

Ecclesiastes · King James Bible — Ecclesiastes 12:12 · 1611
Meaning & context

The ancient observation sounds surprisingly modern: written material can multiply without limit, so discernment matters as much as sheer volume.

Source details

Ecclesiastes 12:12 in the King James Version; excerpt from the verse’s warning about endless book-making and study.

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Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
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“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,”

Alexander Pope · Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot · 1735
Meaning & context

The line describes a subtle form of hostility in which apparent approval is calibrated to diminish rather than support its target.

Source details

An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735 first-edition scan), printed page 11 / scan leaf 17, lines 199–212. “Damn with faint praise” belongs to Pope’s satirical portrait of “Atticus,” conventionally associated with Joseph Addison. It is polemical literary characterization inside Pope’s self-defence, not neutral biography or a general diagnosis of insincere praise.

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There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
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“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.”

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray — 1891 edition · 1891
Voice: Authorial / signed preface voice · Oscar Wilde — Preface
Meaning & context

Wilde shifts judgment away from a book’s supposed moral category and toward artistic execution, a deliberately provocative defense of aesthetic criticism.

Source details

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Preface; one of Wilde’s epigrams about art and books.

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