15 quotes
Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Sketches by Boz (1836)
Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.
In love of home, the love of country has its rise.
The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)
"There are strings," said Mr. Tappertit, "…in the human heart that had better not be wibrated."
Love is not a feeling to pass away,
Like the balmy breath of a summer day;
It is not — it cannot be — laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide.
Lucy's Song in The Village Coquettes (1836)
A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!
A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"
…not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s love.
Dombey and Son (1846)
O let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations.
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!
The Pickwick Papers (1836)
Then Bob proposed: "A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!" Which all his family re-echoed. "God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday — the longer, the better — from the great boarding-school, where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest.
[A] loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom...
David Copperfield (1850)
Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant for them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.
It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!