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Christmas Quotes

Most of the quotes on this page are not about Christmas at all. We built it from the pages on family, love and gratitude, which is what people tend to want for a card or a toast.

That makes it a long list, ordered by quality rather than by how seasonal each entry feels. If you want something that sounds like Christmas, search for it. If you want something that would be true at any family table, start here.

Random quote on Christmas

Most quoted on christmas:

If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?

Jodi Picoult Nineteen Minutes (2007)

Agape's object is always the concrete individual, not some abstraction called humanity. Love of humanity is easy because humanity does not surprise you with inconvenient demands. You never find humanity on your doorstep, stinking and begging.

Peter Kreeft

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.

Voltaire

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

Albert Camus

Beauty grows in you to the extent that love grows, because charity itself is the soul's beauty.

Augustine of Hippo

Let love steal in disguised as friendship.

Ovid

He errs that seeks to set a term to the frenzy of love; true love hath no bound.

Propertius

That possession which we gain by the sword is not lasting; gratitude for benefits is eternal.

Quintus Curtius Rufus

Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Jesus

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.

John the Evangelist

He loves little who loves by rule.

Michel de Montaigne

He who has fostered the sweet poison of love by fondling it, finds it too late to refuse the yoke which he has of his own accord assumed.

Seneca the Younger

Oh, joy, Christmas Eve. By this time tomorrow, millions of Americans, knee deep in tinsel and wrapping paper, will utter those heartfelt words. “Is this All I got?”

Kelsey Grammer

Every man's life (and … every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it immortal … love is a divinity above all accidents, and guards his own with extraordinary obstinacy.

Eleanor Farjeon Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1922)

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!

Thomas Gray

Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth
Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning.
And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth,
There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox New Thought Pastels (1913)

Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.

Augustine of Hippo

To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

Leo Buscaglia Living, Loving, and Learning (1982)

Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.

William Makepeace Thackeray Ballads (1855)

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain … Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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