GRATITUDE
A joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.
The Bible, Psalm 147:16 (Coverdale)
Our favorite attitude should be gratitude.
Author unknown
The art of thanksgiving is thanksliving.
Author unknown
One act of thanksgiving made when things go wrong is worth a thousand when things go well.
Author unknown
Be on the lookout for mercies. The more we look for them, the more of them we will see … Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles.
Author unknown
He who can give thanks for little will always find he has enough.
Author unknown
Two of the most important phrases in the world are, “Thank you,” and “Forgive me.” Say the second often in your lifetime and you will only need the first on your deathbed.
Author unknown
Gratitude is the praise we offer God: for teachers kind, benefactors never to be forgotten, for all who have advantaged me, by writings, sermons, converse, prayers, examples, for all these and all others which I know, which I know not, open, hidden, remembered, and forgotten.
Lancelot Andrewes
This day and your life are God’s gift to you: so give thanks and be joyful always!
Jim Beggs
Gratitude is heaven itself.
William Blake
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. It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Some people always sigh in thanking God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
It is the highest and holiest of the paradoxes that the man who really knows he cannot pay his debt will be forever paying it.
G.K. Chesterton
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.
Cicero
Reflect upon your present blessings – of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens
There is always one thing to be grateful for – that one is one’s self and not somebody else.
Emily Dickinson
I feel a very unusual sensation – if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
Benjamin Disraeli
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Albert Einstein
As to the kindness you mention, I wish I could have been of more service to you than I have been, but if I had, the only thanks that I should desire are that you would always be ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go around, for mankind are all of a family. As for my own part, when I am employed in serving others I do not look upon myself as conferring favors but paying debts.
Benjamin Franklin
Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.
Matthew Henry, meditating on the theft of his wallet.
Thou that has given so much to me,
Give one thing more – a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.
George Herbert
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
Eric Hoffer
The children of Israel did not find in the manna all the sweetness and strength they might have found in it – not because the manna did not contain them, but because they longed for other food.
John of the Cross
Gratitude is from the same root word as grace – the boundless mercy of God. Thanksgiving is from the same root word as think, so to think is to thank.
Willis P. King
Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fasts most, it is not he who lives most, but it is he who is always thankful to God, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.
William Law
A single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.
C.S. Lewis
Men are slower to recognize blessings than evils.
Livy
See that you do not forget what you were before, lest you take for granted the grace and mercy you received from God and forget to express your gratitude each day.
Martin Luther
One of life’s gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness.
J. Robert Maskin
Gratitude is the heart’s memory.
Massieu
Both gratitude for God’s past and current mercies, as well as hope-filled expectation of His future mercy are the strongest motives to live for His glory.
Scott Meadows
When thou has truly thanked the Lord for
every blessing sent,
But little time will then remain for
murmur or lament.
Hannah More
When everything we receive from him is received and prized as fruit and pledge of his covenant love, then his bounties, instead of being set up as rivals and idols to draw our heart from him, awaken us to fresh exercises of gratitude and furnish us with fresh motives of cheerful obedience every hour.
John Newton
Letter to church member
October 10, 1777
I am just come from seeing A–N–. The people told me she is much better than she was, but she is far from being well. She was brought to me into a parlor, which saved me the painful task of going to inquire and seek for her among the patients. My spirits always sink when I am within these mournful walls, and I think no money could prevail on me to spend an hour there every day. Yet surely no sight upon earth is more suited to teach one thankfulness and resignation. Surely I have reason, in my worst times, to be thankful that I am out of hell, out of Bedlam, out of Newgate. If my eyes were as bad as yours, and my back worse, still I hope I should set a great value upon this mercy, that my senses are preserved. I hope you will think so too. The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us therefore pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient.
This day twelvemonth I was under Mr W.’s knife; there is another cause for thankfulness, that the Lord inclined me to submit to the operation, and brought me happily through it. In short, I have so many reasons for thankfulness, that I cannot count them. I may truly say, they are more in number than the hairs of my head. And, yet, alas! how cold, insensible, and ungrateful! I could make as many complaints as you; but I find no good by complaining, except to Him who is able to help me. It is better for you and me to be admiring the compassion and fulness of grace that is in our Savior, than to dwell and pore too much upon our own poverty and vileness. He is able to help and save to the uttermost; there I desire to cast anchor, and wish you to do so likewise. Hope in God, for you shall yet praise Him.
I am, &c.
John Newton
Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an “accident,” but a divine choice.
Henri J. Nouwen
A man receiving charity always hates his benefactor – it is a fixed characteristic of human nature.
George Orwell
Have you ever stopped to be thankful just for yourself?
Bill Pearce
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy – they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust
We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.
French proverb
In gratitude for your own good fortune you must render in return some sacrifice of your life for other life.
Albert Schweitzer
The person who has stopped being thankful has fallen asleep in life.
Robert Louis Stevenson
A life in thankfulness releases the glory of God.
Bengt Sundberg
I realized I had never really thanked God for all the work he had done in my creation. I was overcome as I thought of how God had made plans for my life long before I was born.
Ingrid Trobisch