We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

It is the Christmas time:
And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth,
In glorious grief and solemn mirth,
The shining angels climb.
~Dinah Maria Mulock

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”
–Bob Hope

It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters.

Amit Ray

'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.
~Walter Scott

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Charles Dickens

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.

Winston Churchill

Everything you can imagine is real.

Pablo Picasso

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

Socrates

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”
–Laura Ingalls Wilder

No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

Euripides

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

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.

~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

Norman Vincent Peale

Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace.

Pope Francis

May Peace be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through! ~Author Unknown

When you're in love with a city, you grope for shadows that vanish at first touch.

Herb Caen

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.”

~ Meredith Willson, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas”

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Charles Dickens

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Albert Camus

“Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand.”
–Dr. Seuss

To the one who knows how to look and feel, every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment.

Alexandra David Neel

I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.

Og Mandino

“Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart…filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.”
–Bess Streeter Aldrich, Song of Years

How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, His precepts!

Benjamin Franklin

“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

At Christmas, all roads lead home.

Marjorie Holmes

“There is a Christmas song upon the air,
There is a joy innate within the heart;
An inner sense of peace, a holy light
Illumines life and sets these days apart.”

~ Edna Greene Hines

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

Buddha

The universal joy of Christmas is certainly wonderful. We ring the bells when princes are born, or toll a mournful dirge when great men pass away. Nations have their red-letter days, their carnivals and festivals, but once in the year and only once, the whole world stands still to celebrate the advent of a life.

~Author Unknown

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Calvin Coolidge

“Christmas! ‘Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.”
–Washington Irving

“Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream: a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star, the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby, the incarnation of perfect love.”

~ Lucinda Franks

“Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and color with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow.”
–George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

~Washington Irving

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.

~Andy Rooney

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself...
~Norman Wesley Brooks (1923–2002), “Let Every Day Be Christmas,” 1976 —

Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.

Rene Magritte

For centuries men have kept an appointment with Christmas. Christmas means fellowship, feasting, giving and receiving, a time of good cheer, home.

~W.J. Ronald Tucker

It matters not what the custom may be,
For Christmas is loved by you and by me!
Yes; the years may come and the years may go;
But, when December wind doth, coldly, blow,
We all, I guess, are just children once more
And we plan our gifts, as we did of yore.
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "Christmas" (1940s)

O Christmas Sun! What holy task is thine!
To fold a world in the embrace of God!
~Guy Wetmore Carryl

Christmas — that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.

~Augusta E. Rundel

Wouldn't life be worth the living
Wouldn't dreams be coming true
If we kept the Christmas spirit
All the whole year through?
~Author Unknown

We ring the bells and we raise the strain
We hang up garlands everywhere
And bid the tapers twinkle fair,
And feast and frolic — and then we go
Back to the same old lives again.
~Susan Coolidge

People can't concentrate properly on blowing other people to pieces if their minds are poisoned by thoughts suitable to the twenty-fifth of December.

~Ogden Nash

 

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.

Joseph Campbell

“Good news from heaven the angels bring,
Glad tidings to the earth they sing:
To us this day a child is given,
To crown us with the joy of heaven.”

~ Martin Luther

The earth has grown old with its burden of care,
But at Christmas it always is young....
~Phillips Brooks

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

Joseph Campbell

 

“I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn’t make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of our hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy.”
–Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

~ Dr Seuss

“The merry family gatherings–
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.

For Christmas is tradition time–
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.”

~ Helen Lowrie Marshall

“Let us have music for Christmas…
Sound the trumpet of joy and rebirth;
Let each of us try, with a song in our hearts,
To bring peace to men on earth.”

~ Mildred L. Jarrell

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

“Until one feels the spirit of Christmas, there is no Christmas. All else is outward display–so much tinsel and decorations. For it isn’t the holly, it isn’t the snow. It isn’t the tree not the firelight’s glow. It’s the warmth that comes to the hearts of men when the Christmas spirit returns again.”

~ Unknown

“The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.”
–Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”

~ Calvin Coolidge

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away.
~Eva Logue

Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.

~Author unknown, attributed to a 7-year-old named Bobby

“Each sight, each sound of Christmas
And fragrances sublime
Make hearts and faces happy
This glorious Christmastime.”

~ Carice Williams

“I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness and peace to this world.”
–Norman Vincent Peale

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.”
–Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

“What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.”

~ Agnes M. Pharo

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Yuletide gay.

~Ralph Blane

One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.

Joseph Campbell

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.”

~ Augusta E. Rundel

At Christmas-tide the open hand
Scatters its bounty o'er sea and land,
And none are left to grieve alone,
For Love is heaven and claims its own.
~Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Santa knows Physics: Of all colors, Red Light penetrates fog best. That's why Benny the Blue-nosed reindeer never got the gig.

~Neil deGrasse Tyson

“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”

~ W.T. Ellis

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!”

~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

Aristotle

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
–Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

“The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.”
–Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

~ Charles Dickens, Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!”
–Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

And, so, Christmas comes to bless us!
Comes to teach us how to find
The joy of giving happiness
And the joy of being kind.
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "There Will Always Be a Christmas" (1940s)

Be merry all, be merry all,
With holly dress the festive hall;
Prepare the song, the feast, the ball,
To welcome merry Christmas.

~William Robert Spencer

It is the one season of the year when we can lay aside all gnawing worry, indulge in sentiment without censure, assume the carefree faith of childhood, and just plain "have fun." Whether they call it Yuletide, Noel, Weinachten, or Christmas, people around the earth thirst for its refreshment as the desert traveller for the oasis.

~D.D. Monroe

Whose heart doth hold the Christmas glow
Hath little need of Mistletoe;
Who bears a smiling grace of mien
Need waste no time on wreaths of green;
Whose lips have words of comfort spread
Needs not the holly-berries red—
His very presence scatters wide
The spirit of the Christmastide.

~John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), "The Christmas Spirit" (December Twenty-fourth),

The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse For Every Day, 1920

At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year
~Thomas Tusser

I live and love in God's peculiar light.

Michelangelo

Remember
This December,
That love weighs more than gold!

~Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

A cup of ale,
A merry tale
Of days of olden time,
And Christmas good cheer
To wind up the year
With glad frolic, and fun, and glee.
~Henry James Slack (1818–1896), "Winter's Song," The Ministry of the Beautiful, 1850 [Conversation XI: A Winter Landscape —

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know,
Where the tree tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.”

~ Irving Berlin

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

Ralph Waldon Emerson

Only in souls the Christ is brought to birth,
And there He lives and dies.
~Alfred Noyes

“The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.”
–Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Joseph Campbell

Sing hey! Sing hey!
For Christmas Day;
Twine mistletoe and holly.
For a friendship glows
In winter snows,
And so let's all be jolly!
~Author Unknown

“May Christmas lend a special charm
To all you chance to do.
And may the season light your way
To hopes and dreams anew.”

~ Garnett Ann Schultz, “My Christmas Wish”

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Henry David Thoreau

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

Joseph Campbell

I can understand people simply fleeing the mountainous effort Christmas has become... but there are always a few saving graces and finally they make up for all the bother and distress.

~May Sarton

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Henry David Thoreau

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Albert Einstein