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December 25

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. ~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ)
2005
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
2006
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
2007
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
~ Isaac Watts ~
2008
The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart. ~ Helen Keller
2009
How many observe Christ's Birth-day! how few his Precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments. ~ Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanack (in relation to Christmas)
2010
Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King.
Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room,
And heav'n and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
~ Isaac Watts ~ (traditional Christmas carol)
2011

A very Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear.
War is over,
If you want it —
War is over now.

~ John Lennon & Yoko Ono ~

2012

Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light.

For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise.

They will live again in freedom
In the Garden of the Lord.
They will walk behind the plough-share,
They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken
And all men will have their reward!

~ Les Misérables ~
2013
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
~ Gospel of Luke ~
2014
The earth has grown old with its burden of care
But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.
~ Phillips Brooks ~
2015
On this day, Christians reflect on their faith and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This occasion inspires families and communities to come together, share what they have, and give back to those less fortunate.
May we take this time to reflect on our many blessings, and remind our loved ones how much they mean to us.
~ Justin Trudeau ~
  • proposed by Kalki — last year's Christmas greetings by Trudeau, for what is also his own first birthday after becoming Prime Minister of Canada.
2016
Except the Christ be born again tonight
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright.
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
To that far sky where mystic births begin,
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
~ Vachel Lindsay ~
2017
The central core of truth is that Christmas turns everything upside down, the upside of heaven come down to earth. The Christmas story puts a new value on every man. He is not a thing to be used, not a chemical accident, not an educated ape. Every man is a V.I.P., because he has divine worth. That was revealed when “Love came down at Christmas.” A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, “The best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.” That was what happened at Christmas. The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a person.
Christmas is good news in a world of bad news. … Christmas brings hope to a dark world.
~ Halford E. Luccock ~
2018
Christmas turns everything upside down. This is the central truth of the incarnation — "Immanuel, God with us." The upside of heaven come down to earth. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, . . . full of grace and truth." Men miss the entire meaning of Jesus when they see in him the highest upreach of man; he is God reaching down and making common cause with man's struggle. The meaning of Christmas puts down the mighty things in men's minds from their seats — place, riches, talents — and exalts the things of low degree — humility, simplicity, and trust.
~ Halford E. Luccock ~
2019
Charles Lamb, in one of his most delightful essays, sets high worth on the observance of All Fools' Day, because it says to a man: "You look wise. Pray correct that error!" Christmas brings the universal message to men: "You look important and great; pray correct that error." It overturns the false standards that have blinded the vision and sets up again in their rightful magnitude those childlike qualities by which we enter the Kingdom.
Christmas turns things inside out. Under the spell of the Christmas story the locked up treasures of kindliness and sympathy come from the inside of the heart, where they are often kept imprisoned, to the outside of actual expression in deed and word. … It is the vision of the Christ-child which enables all men to get at the best treasures of their lives and offer them for use.
~ Halford E. Luccock ~
2020
The advent of every baby completely upsets his little world, both physically and spiritually. And it is not one of the smallest values of the fact that the Saviour of the world came into it as a baby, that it reminds men that every baby is born a savior, to some extent, from selfishness and greed and sin in the little circle which his advent blesses.
~ Halford E. Luccock ~
2021
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
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!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more."
~ Dr. Seuss ~
  • proposed by Ningauble (in slightly shorter form, beginning with "It came without ribbons!")
2022
Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being; he does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can’t allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business.
~ Rod Serling ~
2023
Rank or add further suggestions…

The Quote of the Day (QOTD) is a prominent feature of the Wikiquote Main Page. Thank you for submitting, reviewing, and ranking suggestions!

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2 : Good – some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable – but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable – not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.
An averaging of the rankings provided to each suggestion produces it’s general ranking in considerations for selection of Quote of the Day. The selections made are usually chosen from the top ranked options existing on the page, but the provision of highly ranked late additions, especially in regard to special events (most commonly in regard to the deaths of famous people, or other major social or physical occurrences), always remain an option for final selections.
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[edit]

Christmas is an awfulness that compares favorably with the great London plague and fire of 1665-66. No one escapes the feelings of mortal dejection, inadequacy, frustration, loneliness, guilt and pity. No one escapes feeling used by society, by religion, by friends and relatives, by the utterly artifical responsiblities of extending false greetings, sending banal cards, reciprocating unsolicated gifts, going to dull parties, putting up with acquaintances and family one avoids all the rest of the year... in short, of being brutalized by a 'holiday' that has lost virtually all of its original meanings and has become a merchandising ploy for color tv set manufacturers and ravagers of the woodlands. ~ Harlan Ellison

  • 4 - --Mister Six 11:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • 0 Kalki 14:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC) I might give this a 1 or even a 2 some other date of the Christmas season, but I feel it ranks as a zero for Christmas day itself. 1 ~ Kalki 22:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC) (Ellison is an interesting writer and personality, but on this I am inclined to quote an old cartoon: "Bah, Humbug to you too, you old fart!")
  • 1 Zarbon 20:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Think 100 times before you take a decision, But once that decision is taken, stand by it as one man. ~ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting. ~ Carlos Castaneda

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. ~ Erma Bombeck (in relation to Christmas)

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

~ John Milton

India is an ancient nation and not nation in the making. We are not to build a new nation but to make this ancient nation virile to face the challenge of modern times.
With the banner of Nationalism in our hearts to build up a Mighty India, let us march forward on the path of Duty. This is no time for rest; this is no occasion for faltering. Let us go onwards and onwards, till we reach the Goal. -Atal Bihari Vajpayee

A little smile, a word of cheer,
A bit of love from someone near,
A little gift from one held dear,
Best wishes for the coming year.

These make a Merry Christmas!

~ John Greenleaf Whittier ~ Portal:Christmas/Selected_quote/7

  • 3 bystander (talk) 04:21, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • 0 — I was actually inclined to perhaps rank this a 4, and use this, this year, as I had nothing clearly better in mind, but what searches I have done leaves me concluding that it is probably not John Greenleaf Whittier, and its origin remains obscure. ~ ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 22:35, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir. — A Christmas Carol ~ Charles Dickens Portal:Christmas/Selected_quote/15

I'm dedicating my little story to you; doubtless you will be among the very few who will ever read it. It seems war stories aren't very well received at this point. I'm told they're out-dated, untimely and as might be expected - make some unpleasant reading. And, as you have no doubt already perceived, human beings don't like to remember unpleasant things. They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with a few exceptions, seem to accomplish their "forgetting" quite admirably. But you, my children, I don't want you to be among those who choose to forget. I want you to read my stories and a lot of others like them. I want you to fill your heads with Remarque and Tolstoy and Ernie Pyle. I want you to know what shrapnel, and "88's" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean. I want you to feel, no matter how vicariously, a semblance of the feeling of a torn limb, a burnt patch of flesh, the crippling, numbing sensation of fear, the hopeless emptiness of fatigue. All these things are complimentary to the province of war and they should be taught and demonstrated in classrooms along with the more heroic aspects of uniforms, and flags, and honor and patriotism. I have no idea what your generation will be like. In mine we were to enjoy "Peace in our time". A very well meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words...less than a year before the whole world went to war. But this gentleman was suffering the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing the rose colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the war that came before. ~ Rod Serling

  • 4 Optimistically, this quote is more suitable now than it will be next year; I would have ranked this at maybe a 2 last year, being as it's from a dedication to an unpublished short story. CensoredScribe (talk) 18:46, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
  • 1 ♞☤☮♌︎Kalki ⚚⚓︎⊙☳☶⚡ 23:58, 24 December 2022 (UTC); I perceive this to be far too long and meandering to be a good QOTD, and frankly far too dreary and pessimistc to be a good Christmas quote. It clearly was written in a dark mood, for which Serling can surely be pardoned, but I much prefer what hopefulness could endure in him, despite such dark spells. I have added a few quotes showing signs of such hope below, and though I believe Serlings page needs some work, major page editing here is something I am currently avoiding until I return home in a few weeks.
I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it’s a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.
~ Rod Serling ~
Christmas is more than barging up and down department store aisles and pushing people out of the way. … Christmas is another thing finer than that. Richer, finer, truer, and it should come with patience and love, charity, compassion.
~ Rod Serling ~
We’ll pour out some hot coffee, and we’ll pour some brandy in it, and we’ll thank God for miracles.
~ Rod Serling ~
I do believe I may have left my mark, a few gauntlets of knowledge that I’ve thrown down that may have been picked up. … I didn’t win the victories … but I helped others to win them, so, perhaps, in some small measure, they are victories I can share.
~ Rod Serling ~


Lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
~ Gospel of Luke ~
I think on Christmas Eve, we'd been singing carols and this that and the other, and the Germans had been doing the same. And we’d been shouting to each other, sometimes rude remarks more often just joking remarks. Anyway, eventually a German said, "Tomorrow you no shoot, we no shoot." And the morning came and we didn’t shoot and they didn’t shoot. So then we began to pop our heads over the side and jump down quickly in case they shot but they didn’t shoot. And then we saw a German standing up, waving his arms and we didn’t shoot and so on, and so it gradually grew.
~ Marmaduke Walkinton, remembering the WWI Christmas truce ~


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