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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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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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Gratitude is the heart's memory.
-Proverb
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Nothing more detestable does the earth produce than an ungrateful man.
-Decimus Magnus Ausonius
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Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
-Melody Beattie
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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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A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Next to ingratitude the most painful thing to bear is gratitude.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
-Henry Ward Beecher
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Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue.
-William John Bennett
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Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart -- a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water -- I accept with joy.
-Bhagavad Gita
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Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Matthew
-Bible
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There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.
-Ralph H. Blum
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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's choose today to quench our thirst for the good life we thinks others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our lives. We can then offer the universe the gift of our grateful hearts.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach
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Grace is available for each of us every day -- our spiritual daily bread -- but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach
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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.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach
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Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present -- love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure -- the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach
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This race is never grateful: from the first, One fills their cup at supper with pure wine, Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge, In bitter vinegar.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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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 helps you to grow and expands; gratitude brings you and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.
-Eileen Caddy
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I don't like it when people on the street say smile or cheer up. It's a real cheap line. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling real grateful for everything. It's a solid time in my life. When people say I look sad, they're wrong.
-Nicolas Cage
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Remember that not to be happy is not to be grateful.
-Elizabeth Carter
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Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
-G. K. Chesterton
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Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.
-Northrup Christiane
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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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Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
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If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get.
-Frank A. Clark
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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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To remind a man of the good turns you have done him is very much like a reproach.
-Demosthenes
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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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It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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Deficiency motivation doesn't work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.
-Wayne Dyer
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Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything.
-Bob Dylan
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Many times a day I realize how much my own life is built on the labors of my fellowmen, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.
-Albert Einstein
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Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
-Epicurus
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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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Maybe the only thing worse than having to give gratitude constantly is having to accept it.
-William Faulkner
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Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.
-Felix Frankfurter
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When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.
-Benjamin Franklin
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Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones -- with ingratitude.
-Benjamin Franklin
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Eaten bread is soon forgotten.
-Thomas Fuller
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To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
-Johannes A. Gaertner
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
-Edward Gibbon
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That's the trouble with directors. Always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.
-Samuel Goldwyn
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He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well.
-Baltasar Gracian
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Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.
-Baltasar Gracian
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Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it.
-Edward F. Halifax
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The public have neither shame or gratitude.
-William Hazlitt
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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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True thanksgiving means that we need to thank God for what He has done for us, and not to tell Him what we have done for Him. -
-George R. Hendrick
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For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude.
-Clarence E. Hodges
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Every professional athlete owes a debt of gratitude to the fans and management, and pays an installment every time he plays. He should never miss a payment.
-Bobby Hull
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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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We think that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.
-Walter Savage Landor
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Do you realize what this means? The fact of being alive... I still find it staggering that I am here at all.
-Christopher Leach
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One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay in kind somewhere else in life.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
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Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.
-James Russell Lowell
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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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Nothing purchased can come close to the renewed sense of gratitude for having family and friends.
-Courtland Milloy
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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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Gratitude -- the meanest and most sniveling attribute in the world.
-Dorothy Parker
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Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.
-Edwin Arlington Robinson
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We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.
-Fran
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Too great a hurry to discharge an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
-Fran
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In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope for greater favours.
-Fran
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Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.
-Jean Jacques Rousseau
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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,
trans. Edward B. Eastwick
-Sa'di, The Gulistan (or Rose Garden), chapter 3, story 19
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There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it.
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.
-Seneca (Seneca the Elder)
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I hate ingratitude more in a person; than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or, any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood. Twelfth Night
-William Shakespeare
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He receives comfort like cold porridge.
-William Shakespeare
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Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.
-Josef Stalin
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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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One ungrateful person, does an injury to all needy people.
-Publilius Syrus
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One ungrateful man does an injury to all who stand in need of aid.
-Publilius Syrus
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Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for. The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives.
-Terry Lynn Taylor
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Ingratitude is treason to mankind.
-James Thomson
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Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: our love to others, and others love to us.
-Thomas Traherne
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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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Gratitude is the doorman's payment.
-Source Unknown
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Gratitude is a twofold love -- love coming to visit us, and love running out to greet a welcome guest.
-Henry Van Dyke
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Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.
-Henry Van Dyke
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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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God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.
-Izaak Walton
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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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Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness.
-Nathaniel P. Willis
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Our favorite attitude should be gratitude
-Zig Ziglar
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Books about Gratitude
