KEY QUOTES IN A CHRISTMAS CAROL STAVE 1

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.”

“Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”

“No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.”

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.”

“It’s enough for a man to understand his own business and not to interfere with other people’s.”

“I wish to be left alone, sir, that is what I wish. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.”

“The office was closed in a twinkling and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve.”

“Something, or somebody, sitting in his chair, which made him uneasy, was new to him. He was not alone, but stood with a twinkle in his eyes.”

“Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and then went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner.”

“The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.”

“It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation.”

“Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.” WORKPLACE POSITIVE RESPECT QUOTES

“It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that Scrooge was conscious of being exhausted.”

“The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it, trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.”

“No, Spirit! Oh no, no!”

“‘I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!’ Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. ‘The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!’”

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father.”

“Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial.”

“‘Why do you doubt your senses?’ ‘Because,’ said Scrooge, ‘a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’”

“‘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!’”

“‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.”

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”

“His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.”