“If, like many people, you tend to be vaguely unhappy much of the time, it can be very helpful to manufacture a feeling of gratitude by simply contemplating all the terrible things that have not happened to you, or to think of how many people would consider their prayers answered if they could only live as you are now. The mere fact that you have the leisure to read this book puts you in a very rarefied company. Many people on earth at this moment can’t even imagine the freedom that you currently take for granted.”
Sam Harris, Waking Up (Page 96)
Gratitude Quotes
“You slept on a slender pallet that night in Vegas. I was supposed to be sleeping next to you but I couldn’t because I was so happy. Your snores reminded me that you were alive. If you were alive and next to me, I had everything in the world I could ever want.”
Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 3)
“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Page 64)
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.”
“We can’t visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we’d feel in any life is still available. We don’t have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don’t have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don’t have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum. We only need to be one person. We only need to feel one existence. We don’t have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.”
Matt Haig, The Midnight Library (Page 277)
“We tend to think of gratitude as appreciation for what we have been given. Monks feel the same way. And if you ask a monk what he has been given, the answer is everything. The rich complexity of life is full of gifts and lessons that we can’t always see clearly for what they are, so why not choose to be grateful for what is, and what is possible? Embrace gratitude through daily practice, both internally—in how you look at your life and the world around you—and through action. Gratitude generates kindness, and this spirit will reverberate through our communities, bringing our highest intentions to those around us.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 221)
“There are imperfect people in our lives—ones toward whom we feel unresolved or mixed emotions and therefore have trouble summoning gratitude. And yet, gratitude is not black-and-white. We can be grateful for some, but not all, of a person’s behavior toward us. If your relationships are complicated, accept their complexity. Try to find forgiveness for their failures and gratitude for their efforts.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 220)
“When monks are praised, we detach, remembering that whatever we ere able to give was never ours to begin with. To receive gratitude with humility, start by thanking the person for noticing. Appreciate their attention and their intention. Look for a good quality in the other person and return the compliment. Then take the gratitude you are given as an opportunity to be grateful to your teachers.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 216)