Christmas Festival Quotes & Sayings

Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either. — Arthur Conan Doyle

But in February, the Mullahs prohibited the Basant festival, uncaring of the disappointed children who waited every year for this extraordinary jubilation, just as children in the west wait for Father Christmas. There was a formal prohibition on flying pigeons and kites. The pigeons because they symbolized the souls of Sufi saints and protected their mausoleums. The kites because flying them from the roofs invaded women's privacy. — Claudine Le Tourneur D'Ison

I will kill them," Temujin promised, rage kindling in him. "I will burn them and eat their flesh if they do." "That will bring you peace, but it will not change anything for Borte," Hoelun said. "What else can I do? She cannot kill them as I could, or force them to kill her, even. Nothing that happens is her fault." He found himself crying and wiped angrily at bloody tears on his cheeks. "She trusted me." "You cannot make this right, my son. Not if they escape your brothers. If you find her alive, you will have to be patient and kind." "I know that! I love her; that is enough." "It was," Hoelun persisted. "It may not be enough any longer. — Conn Iggulden

I don't think it is strange at all,' Arsinoe says. 'Don't you see? It has to be one of us. It has to be her. My whole life I have heard that it has to be her. That I have to die, so that she can lead. That I do not matter, because she's here. — Kendare Blake

I later asked Mr. Jia about the characters for Christmas. He told me they meant 'holy ... birth ... festival'
Holy Birthday. So while my students may have never heard the Christmas story, their language still recognized its basic significance, all in just three characters. And those three characters expressed the essential meaning far more succinctly than the Latin-based expressions for Christmas I was familiar with. — Aminta Arrington

Not only weight loss surgery is unnecessary but also it deprives human being a normal life. People after surgery would never be able to enjoy their food ever for the rest of their life whether it is Christmas or they are on their holidays or their child birthday or any other festival.
List of problems and complications after the weight loss surgery operation are endless as one may get additional problems such as Hernia, Internal Bleeding, Swelling of the skin around the wounds, etc. I wonder how many weight loss surgeons advice about weight loss surgery to their own family members. — Subodh Gupta

Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year - and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority. — W.J. Cameron

Just when the air turns frosty and the days shrink into darkness, the Christmas season arrives in America. It begins at Thanksgiving--with families, feasts and football. Then during the next six weeks we shop and decorate, worship and make merry. Our hearts warm in the winter cold. We find compassion for strangers, and we remember there are miracles. Pious or festive or both, we join together in an extraordinary national festival. — J. Curtis Sanburn

You may say we made a mistake placing the birth of Jesus on December 25th. Consider this: in 3 B.C., December 25th was the eighth day of Hanukkah, the day when the greatest gift is given ... Early Christians would not have made up the date, or used a pagan festival date ... the date was chosen by people who remembered. — Anonymous

It has been said that Christmas is for children; but as the years of childhood fancy pass away and an understanding maturity takes their place, the simple teaching of the Savior that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive' (Acts 20:35) becomes a reality. The evolution from a pagan holiday transformed into a Christian festival to the birth of Christ in men's lives is another form of maturity that comes to one who has been touched by the gospel of Jesus Christ. — Howard W. Hunter

Hamish's family were unusual in that they had always celebrated Christmas - tree, turkey, presents and all. In parts of the Highlands, like Lochdubh, the old spirit of John Knox still wandered, blasting anyone with hellfire should they dare to celebrate this heathen festival. Hamish had often pointed out that none other than Luther was credited with the idea of the Christmas tree, having been struck by the sight of stars shining through the branches of an evergreen. But to no avail. Lochdubh lay silent and dark beside the black waters of the loch. — M.C. Beaton

We have a small, tight family. I left home at a young age and the best thing for me was to go home at Christmas-time and spend time with my family and friends. It's kind of funny, most people do turkey and all the trimmings, but we would have a big seafood festival because it's the only time of the year that we'd eat it. We never really went caroling, but once in a while we'd got out for a sleigh ride — Jimmy Roy

The truth is Christmas evolved from the Roman holiday Saturnalia, a winter festival where men gave gifts to each other. They also would get drunk, have sex with each other and beat their wives — Huey Freeman The Boondocks

WHEN the candles are lit on the Christmas Tree, the human soul feels as though the symbol of an eternal reality were standing there, and that this must always have been the symbol of the Christmas Festival, even in a far distant past. For in the autumn, when outer Nature fades, when the sun's creations fall as it were into slumber and man's organs of outer perception must turn away from the phenomena of the physical world, the soul has the opportunity - nay not only the opportunity but the urge - to withdraw into its innermost depths, in order to feel and to experience: Now, when the light of the outer sun is faintest and its warmth feeblest, now is the time when the soul withdraws into the darkness but can find within itself the inner, spiritual Light. — Anonymous

Christmas is a sacred festival. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling. — Graham Greene

Time is the horizontal dimension of life, the surface layer of reality. Then there is the vertical dimension of depth, accessible only through the portal of the present moment. — Eckhart Tolle

Thus one of Europe's most serious crises will be ended, and all of us, not only in Germany but those far beyond our frontiers, will then in this year for the first time really rejoice at the Christmas festival. It should for us all be a true Festival of Peace. — Adolf Hitler

Selfridges' Christmas hot list includes faux fur animal hats by Merrimaking, currently enjoying a cult status in Japan and amongst festival goers. — Geraldine James

Sometimes I feel like tap-dancing, screeching, unscrewing light bulbs, pulling curtains, combing hair, doing knee bends, handstands and turning somersaults out there. — Ilie Nastase

Be daring and determined. — Lailah Gifty Akita

She took my heat. Traded it to the devil for some bauble. — Denis Johnson

We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. — Oswald Chambers

Unanimity is the mistress of strength. — Alphonse De Lamartine

If you have a good spine, the gods will chase you. Nobody has psychological or emotional problems, everyone has a bad spine. — Bikram Choudhury

Ugh. Would that Christmas could just be, without presents. It is just so stupid, everyone exhausting themselves, miserably haemorrhaging money on pointless items nobody wants: no longer tokens of love but angst-ridden solutions to problems. [...] What is the point of entire nation rushing round for six weeks in a bad mood preparing for utterly pointless Taste-of-Others exam which entire nation then fails and gets stuck with hideous unwanted merchandise as fallout? If gifts and cards were completely eradicated, then Christmas as pagan-style twinkly festival to distract from lengthy winter gloom would be lovely. But if government, religious bodies, parents, tradition, etc. insist on Christmas Gift Tax to ruin everything why not make it that everyone must go out and spend £500 on themselves then distribute the items among their relatives and friends to wrap up and give to them instead of this psychic-failure torment? — Helen Fielding

We no longer sing and dance. We don't know how to. Instead, we watch other people sing and dance on the television screen. Christmas, which was once a festival of active enjoyment, has turned into a binge of purely passive pleasures. — Tom Hodgkinson

Odd that a festival to celebrate the most austere of births should end up being all about conspicuous consumption. — Jeanette Winterson

All ceremony depends on symbol; and all symbols have been vulgarized and made stale by the commercial conditions of our time...Of all these faded and falsified symbols, the most melancholy example is the ancient symbol of the flame. In every civilized age and country, it has been a natural thing to talk of some great festival on which "the town was illuminated." There is no meaning nowadays in saying the town was illuminated...The whole town is illuminated already, but not for noble things. It is illuminated solely to insist on the immense importance of trivial and material things, blazoned from motives entirely mercenary...It has not destroyed the difference between light and darkness, but it has allowed the lesser light to put out the greater...Our streets are in a permanent dazzle, and our minds in a permanent darkness. — G.K. Chesterton

On an average, we celebrate 4-5 festivals per month. There are the major ones like Christmas and Diwali and then there are minor ones like whatsitsname-get-drunk-and-dance-in-front-of-temple-near-bomanahalli festival. — Rachna Singh

The thing that keeps me awake at night is a nexus between terrorism and massive destruction ... the possibility that a terrorist organization could either acquire a ready-made weapon or fabricate something improvised that would have a catastrophic effect for us. — Michele Flournoy

Christmas Day is the festival of optimism. — Helen Keller