Sometimes you need to dive into fiction to find common-sense wisdom, right?
8 Cheshire Cat Quotes That Reveal Profound Truths about Life
by Sherrie Hurd
If you’ve ever read Alice in Wonderland or watched the movie, I bet you were mesmerized by the Cheshire cat quotes. The depth is amazing.
Most movies focus on the main characters, leaving the others in the background, but not this one. Lewis Carrol perfected his characters to have their own unique personalities, complete with deep feelings and convictions.
I remember watching Alice in Wonderland and simply being stolen away by the Cheshire Cat. Out of all the characters, this feline both inspired and left me with a strange depth of emotion.
The Deepest Cheshire Cat Quotes
And here we are, right where we are supposed to be, learning deep wisdom from a cat who grins from ear to ear and disappears on a whim. Yes, he may be born from the imagination of a man, but that man translated wisdom in its rawest form through this character.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the Cheshire cat.
1. “I’m not crazy. My reality is just different than yours”
Hmm, am I crazy? Well, on a personal level, my psychiatrist said I did have a few chemical imbalances of the brain and trauma-induced panic. But wait! Could I be just living a different life with a whole other set of norms? Umm, maybe I’m not the best example, but not to fear. Think about this:
In Alice in Wonderland, many of society’s norms are challenged. Maybe for the citizens of this other world, what’s crazy is quite normal.
Maybe, like the characters in the movie, my reality is different from yours, and yours may be much different than the person sitting beside you or in the other room. I think sanity is subjective to what you feel and believe it to be.
2. “How do you run from what is inside your head?”
You can run from a killer, you can run from your responsibilities, but you cannot run from your thoughts. Maybe you can push them back a bit, but eventually, they will return.
According to the Cheshire cat in this famous quote, you can never truly get away from what resides between your ears. You must face yourself, basically.
3. “I knew who I was this morning, but I have changed a few times since then.”
Have you ever felt like a different person in the afternoon than in the morning? Maybe you woke up feeling ambitious, but when evening came, you feel like a shy person who only wanted to curl up and read a book.
It’s okay to be more than one of you, and I don’t mean some sort of disorder. You can be perfectly sane, heaven forbid, and still be a different you for different times of the day or various situations. I think it’s pretty much normal, don’t you?
4. “You are too naïve if you believe life is innocent laughter and fun.”
Please don’t believe that life is full of rainbows and unicorns because it’s not. But, of course, most of you already know that if you’re above the age of 15.
If you do believe that life is just fun and laughter, you haven’t taken a big enough chunk out of life to tell the difference. The truth is, while life is beautiful, it is also ugly and hard. Do not be fooled.
5. “Every adventure requires a first step.”
The Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland drawn by John Tenniel (1820-1914) in the 1866 edition.
You may sit around and dream of having that great adventure, but does thinking about it make it happen?
Well, not unless you put thought to action.
Alice knew this all too well, and so did the Cheshire cat.
She often sought great wisdom from this phantom-like cat, and one thing she learned – you must take the first step in order to get going. Where will you go? Well, that depends on which road you take.
But you shall take none if you do not get started.
6. “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality”
Wars and more wars happen and how shall we win? Reality can be difficult, to say the least, and it’s not guns or grenades that will change reality.
The mind is the answer, or more so, the imagination. Man has a great imagination if he chooses to use it, so why can’t we try to seek peace in that way instead. I think that cat was on to something great.
7. “Not all who wander are lost”
Do not fear for those who travel far and wide or those who wander as if they are lost. They are not. Sometimes it’s good to just go out and explore the world with no real plan.
Discovering new places and new people can bring great things to our lives. So, if we walk off into the wild blue yonder, that doesn’t mean we don’t know what we’re doing. Just because we cannot be labeled or characterized, doesn’t mean we don’t know who we are.
8. “I never get involved in politics”
Although politics are important to a certain degree, sometimes you can get too involved in taking sides and choosing standpoints.
I’ve been sitting on the fence for a little while, keeping my feet out of the mud… the muddy muddy mess of politics lately. I am not totally sure what the Cheshire cat meant other than Alice’s predicament, but I know how I feel about those strange politics of life.
The Cheshire cat quotes are sure to get you thinking
I love a quote that can tickle your fancy and teach you a few things at the same time. I even love a quote that leaves you confused for a while and makes you pick your own brain.
Cheshire cat quotes can do that. I think I will go back and read that book, or watch that movie again. It will be fun to hear the eerie and intriguing wisdom from that smile floating in the air, manifesting an intelligent cat full of life and full of dark humor.
Don’t you just love Alice in Wonderland!
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