Gratitude Quotes
“I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear. On you—if it’s Tuesday. Because we’re Tuesday people.”
Morrie Schwartz, via Tuesdays With Morrie (Page 57)
“In all things we should try to make ourselves be as grateful as possible. For gratitude is a good thing for ourselves, in a manner in which justice, commonly held to belong to others, is not. Gratitude pays itself back in large measure.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, via The Daily Stoic (Page 385)
“What keeps our faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids—all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake.”
Garrison Keillor, via Sunbeams (Page 107)
“Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours. But watch yourself, that you don’t value these things to the point of being troubled if you should lose them.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, The Daily Stoic (Page 149)
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, via Sunbeams (Page 91)
“One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, via Sunbeams (Page 87)
Henry David Thoreau Quote on Keeping Your Spirit Up By Dealing With Brute Nature
“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snow in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”
Henry David Thoreau, Sunbeams (Page 8)
Beyond the Quote (Day 377)
For when you are warm, satiated, and fresh again—you can truly be thankful. Hard to be truly thankful for warmth until you’ve felt cold. Hard to appreciate the satisfaction of a full stomach if your stomach never empties. Hard to understand the blessing of feeling fresh when sleeping in and lack of responsibility are your everyday norms. If you would like to keep your spirits up, it helps to remind your spirit of what’s below.
Read More »Henry David Thoreau Quote on Keeping Your Spirit Up By Dealing With Brute Nature“So much has been given to you. Do you deserve it? Have you earned it? Existence goes on pouring so much over you that to ask for more is just ugly. That which you have received, you should be grateful for it. And the most beautiful thing is that when you are grateful, more and more existence starts pouring over you. It becomes a circle: the more you get, the more you become grateful; the more you become grateful, the more you get… and there is no need to end it, it is an infinite process.”
Osho, Courage (Page 190)
Leonard Nimoy Quote on Sharing and the Miracle of Thanks∙Giving
“The miracle is this: the more we share the more we have.”
Leonard Nimoy
Beyond the Quote (328/365)
Happy Thanks∙Giving. One of my favorite holidays where we give∙thanks. When you look closely at the name you’ll notice an important observation about thanks—it must be given. And from what I’ve learned about gratitude, I’d even go so far as to say that thanks is only real when it’s given. Thanks is not something that can be taken, nor is it something that can be arbitrarily absorbed. It isn’t something that manifests itself when we go through the motions of a feast or a gathering. And it isn’t something you just walk into. Thanks is something that must come through you.
Read More »Leonard Nimoy Quote on Sharing and the Miracle of Thanks∙Giving
“Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not, their beds became their cooling boards, and their blankets became their winding sheets. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this… So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now