Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
- Date
- 1871
- Local voice
- Fictional character · White Queen
Meaning of “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six…”
The absurd boast celebrates imaginative flexibility and the ability to entertain possibilities before demanding immediate proof.
Where does it come from?
Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter V, “Wool and Water,” printed page 100 / scan leaf 120 in the fully validated 1872 Macmillan first-edition witness on Wikisource. The White Queen tells Alice that with enough practice she sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. This collection retains its 1871 source-year convention while the evidence witness is title-dated 1872; this remains fictional nonsense-logic rather than Lewis Carroll’s literal theory of belief or instruction to accept impossible claims.
Why the local voice matters
Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 5.
