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I had the blues
because I had no shoes
until upon the street,
I met a man who had no feet.
-Anon., attributed to several: Denis Waitley, Ancient Persian Saying, etc.
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"We count our miseries carefully, and accept our blessings without much thought."
-Chinese Proverb
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I would thank you from the bottom of my heart, but for you my heart has no bottom.
-Anon.
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Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!
-Henry Ward Beecher
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In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."
-Buddha
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Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
-G. K. Chesterton
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Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
-Sir Winston Churchill
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The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
-Dorothy Day
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"Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some"
-Charles Dickens
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May we never let the things we can't have, or don't have, or shouldn't have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness let us not forget it, for one of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot or should not have.
-Richard L. Evans
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"Gratitude": An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary behavior, "altruism." Both imaginaries are false faces for selfishness, which is a real and honest emotion.
-Robert A. Heinlein, To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987)
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There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits not because recompense is a pleasure for them, but because obligation is a pain.
-Samuel Johnson, The Rambler (1750-52)
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Some people grumble because roses have thorns; I am thankful that the thorns have roses.
-Alphonse Karr
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As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted--a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.
-Rabbi Harold Kushner
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I have discovered that when we least care to admit it, we feel more confused than thankful, more caught than called, more worried than gracious. In humble moments when we can no longer gloss over the roughness of life, gratitude has a way of pushing out the real soreness of feeling cheated or inadequate to the rugged realities of the world. Gratitude seemed to be a handy response to dodge the tough things for which there are no simple or comforting answers.
-Patrick J. Malone, S.J., from "Lessons Learned" - web article
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Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.
-Jacques Maritain, Reflections on America, ch. 17
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I'm grateful for the opportunity to live on this beautiful and astonishing planet Earth. In the morning, I wake up with a sense of gratitude.
-Earl Nightingale
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In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope for greater favours.
-François de La Rochefoucauld
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I never complained of the vicissitudes of fortune, nor suffered my face to be overcast at the revolution of the heavens, except once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes. I came to the chief of Kfah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience, and exclaimed,
“Roast fowl to him that’s sated will seem less
Upon the board than leaves of garden cress.
While, in the sight of helpless poverty,
Boiled turnip will a roasted pullet be.”
[trans. Edward B. Eastwick]
-Sa'di, The Gulistan (or Rose Garden), chapter 3, story 19
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Be thankful. Cultivate an "attitude of gratitude." Thankfulness is much more dependent on attitude than circumstance. When you feel the lack of what you don't have, thank God for what you do have! At any time, there is more going right in the life of a committed Christian than there is going wrong. It's just that the "wrong" makes a lot more noise than the "right."
-Jim Stephens, GraceNotes
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Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father's palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels...
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.
Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels: till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world.
Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house: till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice in the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but today morning.
Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of hell than willingly be guilty of their error...
The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it... It is the place of Angels, and the Gate of Hea
-Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations
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If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
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...gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened.
-Mark Twain, Autobiography
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"We cannot look at the child who has been raped and offer the theological maxim that God will draw something good from out of this. We cannot think of the children consumed by the fires of Auschwitz and Hiroshima and manufacture some easy gratitude. Gratitude does not take away the horrors of violence."
-Ellen Vaughn, Radical Gratitude
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"Whatever we are waiting for -- peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance -- it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.
Gratitude arises in that in-between space where the inner and outer worlds meet and touch and encompass each other. Authentic spirituality, genuine politics, and good economics arise from a spirit of radical gratitude."
-Ellen Vaughn, Radical Gratitude
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Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
-William Arthur Ward
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No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
-John Greenleaf Whittier, MY PSALM, 1859
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My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate.
-Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth (act I), 1942
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Books about Gratitude
