Original Christmas Quotes & Sayings

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers? — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The California fever is not likely to take us off ... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil. — Rutherford B. Hayes

At school, my religious-education teacher expressly forbade us to write "Xmas." It was regarded as a foul blasphemy. How would I like it if people used an anonymous X in place of my name? However, it would seem that the word "Xmas" is not blasphemous after all.

In the original Greek, "Christ" was written "Xristos," but the X isn't the Roman "ecks"; The Cassell Dictionary of Word Histories explains that it is the Greek letter "chi" (pronounced with a k to rhyme with "eye"--k'eye). The x is simply a stand-in for "the first letter of Greek Khristos--Christ." Indeed, the Chi-Rho (CH-r--the first two syllables of "Christ") illumination can be seen in the ancient Irish manuscript of the Gospels, The Book of Kells, which is housed at Trinity College in Dublin. This work dates back to the ninth century.

Of course, strictly speaking, Xmas" should still be pronounced "Christmas" because it's an abbreviation, not an alternative word. — Andrea Barham

Pay no heed to the average photographer's remarks upon "flat" and "weak" negatives. Probably he is flat, weak, stale, and unprofitable; your negative may be first-rate, and probably is if he does not approve of it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I first met my husband, I needed that helping hand to take the reins and look after me. — Christina Aguilera

All items listed above belong in the world
In which all things are continuous,
And are parts of the original dream which
I am now trying to discover the logic of. This
Is the process whereby pain of the past in its pastness
May be converted into the future tense
Of joy.
I Am Dreaming of a White Christmas: The Natural History of a Vision (1974) — Robert Penn Warren

"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day," which I actually recorded on "Quality Street" because I don't think anyone has ever covered it before. You hear it every single Christmas, and it is a great record. That's by Wizzard. It is a really great record, but I don't think anyone's ever covered it before, so I had to go it doing it differently. It's quite different from how the original goes. — Nick Lowe

I think it's kind of difficult to write a good Christmas song because you have a narrow framework of references that you have to work within, and at the same time you want to do something that's personally original and hopefully somewhat unique. — John Oates

Kind 'Guardian' readers have been forwarding me round robin Christmas newsletters for years now: lengthy missives full of perfect children, exotic holidays, talented pets and endless, tedious detail. The notes that accompanied them revealed they had inspired in the original recipients everything from mild irritation to absolute rage. — Simon Hoggart

Christmas is a response to bring mankind back, to restore some original intent that could never be even remotely restored by any effort of mankind regardless of how grand or majestic any such effort might be. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

If after giving it all that you possibly can, you do lose to the competition, then they really deserve the win. — Nabil N. Jamal

Miss America Singer of Carolina, Five." I — Kiera Cass

I hate Christmas. I do think it is odd that I have wound up playing these two iconic Christmas haters. It is the same story, in a way. Scrooge is the original Grinch. I think I am perfectly suited, because I have had some dark Christmases. — Jim Carrey

A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that's where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed. — Paul Engle

I'm not prejudiced in any way that I can think of. That's just not the guy I am. — Willie Nelson

- The myths are dead. The gods are dead. The ghosts and ghouls and phantoms are dead. There is only the State, and the People.
- No, Monsieur Robespierre. There is much more than that. — Neil Gaiman

I have a sense of destiny that you are led to the things you are supposed to do. — Robert Downey Jr.

War isn't just about bravery and courage and jingoism and patriotism. It's also fundamentally about grief. And the people that go and do the fighting and the dying are never the people who actually benefit from the fighting and the dying. — Russell Crowe

Just like our story, the original Christmas tales were stories of searching, not so much for the lost, as for the familiar. Mary and Joseph sought in Bethlehem- the home of their familial ancestry- a place to start their own family; the three kings from the East journeyed beneath the sentinel star to find the King of Kings; and the shepherds sought a child in a place most familiar to them: a manger. — Richard Paul Evans