Daily Inspiration Quote by Franklin P. Adams

The tinsel barely hits the trash before the cash register starts barking again. Franklin P. Adams, a newspaper wit with a vaudevillian ear for American hypocrisy, compresses the post-holiday hangover into a single, clipped verdict: sentiment had its allotted season; now the real religion resumes.

The line works because it’s rhythmically two gavel strikes. “Christmas is over” isn’t just a calendar update, it’s a permission slip to stop performing warmth. Then comes the clincher, “Business is Business,” a phrase so tautological it functions like an alibi. Nobody has to argue for greed or routine or emotional withdrawal; the repetition pretends necessity. That’s the joke and the accusation: capitalism doesn’t need a moral defense when it can pose as common sense.

Adams wrote in an America where department-store Christmas was already becoming a machine: mass advertising, standardized gifting, the holiday as both spectacle and sales strategy. In that context, the quote needles the annual cycle of sanctioned kindness. We’re allowed a brief, socially enforced softness, then we’re expected to snap back to competition, bills, and the office clock. The humor is dry, but the sting is real: a culture that markets generosity as an event can treat empathy like seasonal décor.

It also lands as newsroom shorthand. Journalists watch public feeling spike and fade; Adams turns that observation into a one-liner about how quickly institutions, employers, and even families reassert the “normal” order. The cynicism isn’t nihilism. It’s a warning about how easily ritual becomes a reset button for conscience.