A Christmas Carol is an extremely famous novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843, and was illustrated by John Leech. Dickens penned the novel after being influenced by his own youth and Christmas stories of other authors like Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Check out the most popular Christmas Carol Quotes.
31 Quotes from A Christmas Carol – Food for Thought
Christmas Carol Quotes on Gratitude
#1. “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” — Charles Dickens.
#2. “Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.” — Charles Dickens.
#3. “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” — Charles Dickens.
Christmas Carol Quotes on Selfishness
#4. “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it… I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always.” — Charles Dickens.
#5. “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” — Charles Dickens.
#6. “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.” — Charles Dickens.
Christmas Carol Quotes on Hope
#7. “He was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten.” — Charles Dickens.
#8. “And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” — Charles Dickens.
#9. “You fear the world too much,’ she answered gently. ‘All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?” — Charles Dickens.
#10. “God bless us every one!” — Charles Dickens.
#11. “I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round…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.” — Charles Dickens.
#12. “His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.” — Charles Dickens.
#13. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!” — Charles Dickens.
Christmas Carol Quotes on Regret
#14. “They are Man’s and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” — Charles Dickens.
#15. “Marley was dead, to begin with … This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.” — Charles Dickens.
#16. “Come in, — come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!” — Charles Dickens.
#17. “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked can’t until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live; what men shall die?” — Charles Dickens.
#18. “And, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves as one, but every child was conducting itself like forty.” — Charles Dickens.
#19. “He lived in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.” — Charles Dickens.
#20. “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” — Charles Dickens.
Other Quotes from the Christmas Carol
#21. “This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” — Charles Dickens.
#22. “They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barren still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.” — Charles Dickens.
#23. “It is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too.” — Charles Dickens.
#24. “If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” — Charles Dickens.
#25. “In short, I should have liked to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet be man enough to.” — Charles Dickens.
#26. “Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.” — Charles Dickens.
#27. “I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.” — Charles Dickens.
#28. “Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man’s pockets.” — Charles Dickens.
#29. “The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.” — Charles Dickens.
#30. “What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” “To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, Christmas Day.” “It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven’t missed it.” — Charles Dickens.
#31. “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew.” — Charles Dickens.
Conclusion
A Christmas Carol propagated that friendship, family and kindness are values that people should value far above material wealth. Charles Dickens also addresses a wide variety of issues in this holiday story like social injustice, sickness and poverty that existed at the time and the role everyone should play in making the world a better place.
Image source: Christmas Carol photo from eno.org