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QUOTES OF THE DAY
Tag: Charles Dickens
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts!”
Benjamin Franklin
“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
Charles Dickens
“And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THIS DAY IN HISTORY – “A Christmas Carol” is published – 1843
On December 19, 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story “A Christmas Carol” is published.
Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown into debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels.
Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – “A Christmas Carol” is published – 1843”
Corrupt Worldly Power is an Illusion, a Fleeting Pleasure, a False Premise, a Broken Promise
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
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power
1 a: ability to act or produce an effect
b : legal or official authority, capacity, or right
2 a : possession of control, authority, or influence over others
b : one having such power specifically : a sovereign state
c : a controlling group
d archaic : a force of armed men
3 a : physical might
c : political control or influence
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The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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My blog was started four years ago this month. Inspired by the courage of other writers out here on the still-free internet, I thought I’d add my two cents, as it were; an American Nobody speaking truth to power. Indeed, in September 2016, I fully expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidency in a matter of weeks.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“`But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
`Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’
It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
`At this time of the rolling year,’ the spectre said `I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!’
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
`Hear me!’ cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly gone.'”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“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, A Christmas Carol
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“I will honour 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, A Christmas Carol
“And 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!”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Place Your Bets, Hedge Your Bets, Winner Takes All
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
― George Orwell, “1984”, part 3, chapter 3
In the eight days following Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Election win, I wrote a series of three (3) articles based upon Charles Dicken’s literary classic, “A Tale of Two Cities”. The first piece entitled “Best of Times Worst of Times” was a play-by-play of my own election night experience. The second installment, entitled “A Tale of Two Cities” drew some comparisons between our modern times with Dickens’ major themes of “duality, revolution, and resurrection” against the backdrop of the burgeoning warfare between the aristocratic class and those of the peasants during the French Revolution. And the third and final article concluded with these words:
Continue reading “Place Your Bets, Hedge Your Bets, Winner Takes All”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
“[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay.”
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit
“We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude…If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements…if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”
Thomas Jefferson
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
Charles Dickens
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
Charles Dickens
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
Charles Dickens
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Dickens’ Christmas message in the 1851 Christmas edition of his weekly magazine, Household Words, reminds readers to remember those who have passed and to cherish their memory as part of the celebration of the holiday.
Dickens himself had recently lost his father John Dickens, his infant daughter Dora, his sister Fanny, and her crippled son Henry Jr. He also remembers, as always, Catherine’s sister Mary, a dear girl–almost a woman–never to be one, who had died in 1837.”
David Perdue, On Charles Dickens
Christmas is more than a time of joy and gift-giving and receiving presents. It is a time to recall our blessings and to gain strength in the grace and bosom of our families.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by
link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my
own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”
Scrooge trembled more and more.
“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the
strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this,
seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a
ponderous chain!…”
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“‘This boy is Ignorance. 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. Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your false purposes, and make it worse! And await the end!’ ‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ cried Scrooge. And the spirit turned his words on him. ‘Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?'”
Charles Dickens
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Are there no prisons?”
“Plenty of prisons…”
“And the Union workhouses.” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“Both very busy, sir…”
“Those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol