I heard the bells on Christmas Day; their old familiar carols play, and wild and sweet the word repeat of peace on earth, good-will to men!

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

—Oren Arnold

 

It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One.

 —Charles Dickens

 

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.

—Ella Wheeler

 

Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.

 —Richard Lamm

 

There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.

—Erma Bombeck

 

Christmas, in its final essence, is for grown people who have forgotten what children know. Christmas is for whoever is old enough to have denied the unquenchable spirit of man.

—Margaret Cousins

 

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.

 —Eric Sevareid

 

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

—Garrison Keillor

 

Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes — goodwill among men and peace on earth.

—Albert Einstein

 

Of course, this is the season to be jolly, but it is also a good time to be thinking about those who aren’t.

—Helen Valentine

 

Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.

—Robert Lynd