Quotation Saturday ~ Holidays

Pss. 36:5 “Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.”

HOLIDAYS

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!” 
― Dave Barry

“Humanity has always conquered the flux of natural time by means of a rhythm between active and passive time-spans. To reconquer his holidays, to establish a new and better time schedule for life, has been the great endeavour of man ever since the days of Noah.” 
― Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy,

“This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's world contracted, day by day, into the microcosmic single festive household, each with its own rituals and obsessions, rules and dreams. You didn't feel you could call people. They didn't feel they could phone you. How does one cry for help from these seasonal prisons?” 
― Zadie Smith

“It's not about presents but it is about your presence. Therein lies the spirit of the holiday season.” 
― Julieanne O'Connor

CHRISTMAS

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a mountain of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess.” 
― Tess Gerritsen

“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

“When purchasing gifts becomes the focal point of the season, we lose focus on what's truly important.” 
― Joshua Fields Millburn

FAITH

“Is my faith so terribly pathetic that I have diminished God to the point that I doubt His ability to survive in the very world that He came to save? Indeed, I have done exactly that. And all I need to do to beat that mentality is to remember that a baby born in a manger with every disadvantage imaginable stills lives today.” 
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

Dreams come from that special place in our mind where our soul loves to spend its holidays.” 
― Anthony T.Hincks

“The Simple Path
Silence is Prayer
Prayer is Faith
Faith is Love
Love is Service
The Fruit of Service is Peace” 
― Mother Teresa

“There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord.” 
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon

GREED

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” 
― Socrates

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.” 
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” 
― Edward Abbey

DEPRESSION

“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.” 
― John Green

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” 
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” 
― Laurell K. Hamilton

“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.” 
― Ned Vizzini