Be Thankful - Living with Gratitude

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

You cannot do a kindness too soon
because you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one is useless in this world
who lightens the burden of another.
Charles Dickens

We should all be thankful for
those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
Albert Schweitzer

Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness,
universal to all ages and all faiths.
At whatever straws we must grasp,
there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings.
J. Robert Moskin

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies;
but let the thankful heart
sweep through the day and,
as the magnet finds the iron,
so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward Beecher

Some people are always grumbling
because roses have thorns;
I am thankful
that thorns have roses.
Alphonse Karr

To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude
means to take nothing for granted,
but to always seek out and value
the kind that will stand behind the action.
Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course.
Everything originates in a will for the good,
which is directed at you.
Train yourself never to put off
the word or action for the expression of gratitude.
Albert Schweitzer

He said he got up to the line and thought about
his wife and daughter, and everything he had
to be thankful for.
Spoken after an interview with Derek Parra,
immediately following his silver medal winning
2002 Olympic performance.

Gratitude: A lively sense of future benefit.
A French Definition

I think I learned
to appreciate and treasure each day,
because you don't know
how many you're going to be given.
US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

None of those material possessions do anything
to make your life any better....
I know a lot of people who have
a lot of everything, and they're absolutely
the most miserable people in the world.
So it won't do anything for you
unless you're a happy person
and can have peace with yourself.
Lenny Kravitz

When I started counting my blessings,
my whole life turned around.
Willie Nelson

If you haven’t all the things you want,
be grateful for the things you don’t have
that you wouldn’t want.
Unknown

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

He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus

Blessed are those that can give without remembering
and receive without forgetting.
Author Unknown

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.
- The Buddha

No one is as capable of gratitude
as one who has escaped
the kingdom of night.
Elie Wiesel, accepting Nobel Peace Prize (1986)

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all the others.
Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed
in the same moment.
Naomi Williams, Body, Mind and Spirit

If you concentrate on finding whatever 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
in the essay "God's Fingerprints on the Soul",
Source: Handbook for the Soul

Make it a habit to tell people thank you.
To express your appreciation,
sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return.
Truly appreciate those around you,
and you'll soon find many others around you.
Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.
Ralph Marston

A noble person is mindful and thankful for the favors
he receives from others.
the Buddha

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

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
These are but trifles, to be sure;
but, scattered along life's pathway,
the good they do is inconceivable.
Joseph Addison

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust

To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude,
when it is not in our power to repay it.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

To live a life of gratitude
is to open our eyes to the countless ways
in which we are supported by the world around us.
Such a life provides less space for our suffering
because our attention is more balanced.
We are more often occupied
with noticing what we are given,
thanking those who have helped us,
and repaying the world in some concrete way
for what we are receiving.
Gregg Krech,
Naikan: Gratitude, Grace & the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection
submitted by Mie

Happiness is the realization of God in the heart.
Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving,
of faith, of acceptance;
a quiet tranquil realization of the love of God.
White Eagle

Gratitude is something of which
none of us can give too much.
For on the smiles, the thanks we give,
our little gestures of appreciation,
our neighbors build their philosophy of life.
A. J. Cronin

People who live the most fulfilling lives
are the ones who are always rejoicing at what they have.
Richard Carlson, PhD, "Shortcut Through Therapy"

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,
Quoted in "Simple Abundance", by Sarah Ban Breathnach

Things turn out best for people who make the best
of the way things turn out.
John Wooden

"I like to walk alone on country paths,
rice plants and wild grasses on both sides,
putting each foot down on the earth
in mindfulness, knowing
that I walk on the wondrous earth.
In such moments, existence is a miraculous
and mysterious reality.

People usually consider walking on water
or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle
is not to walk either on water or in thin air,
but to walk on earth.
Every day we are engaged in a miracle
which we don't even recognize:
a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves,
the black, curious eyes of a child--
our own two eyes.
All is a miracle."
Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"

We Americans are living a lifestyle of exhaustion.
We don't have time for ourselves, much less
for each other and our children.
James Dobson, PhD, radio interview

Live all you can. It's a mistake not to.
It doesn't much matter what you do in particular,
so much as you LIVE while you're doing it.
Henry James

How easily we can forget how precious life is!
So long as we can remember, we've just been here, being alive.
Unlike other things for which we have a good comparison--
black to white, day to night, good to bad--
we are so immersed in life that we can see it
only in the context of itself.
We don't see life as compared to anything,
to not-being, for example, to never having been born.
Life just is. But life itself is a gift.
It's a compliment just being born:
to feel, breathe, think, play, dance, sing,
work, make love, for this particular lifetime.
Today, let's give thanks for life.
For life itself. For simply being born!
Daphne Rose Kingma, Source: A Grateful Heart

... success or failure, the truth of a life really has little
to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion,
always, to the capacity for delight.
The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.
Julia Cameron

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs.
He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Phillip James Bailey

To love for the sake of being loved is human,
But to love for the sake of loving is angelic.
Alphonse De Lamartine

Choosing Trust over Doubt
gets me burned once in a while,
but I'd rather be singed than hardened.
Victoria Monfort

People, even more than things,
have to be restored, renewed, revived,
reclaimed, and redeemed;
never throw out anyone.
Audrey Hepburn

Fear grows out of the things we think; it lives in our minds.
Compassion grows out of the things we are,
and lives in our hearts.
Belinda Garrison

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish;
it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.
Joe Paterno

I feel like God gave me an amazing ability,
and it's my duty
to show people what I'm made of.
- Antonio Tarver,
1996 US Olympic Bronze Medalist,
Men's Boxing

Duty, then is the sublimest word in our language.
Do your duty in all things.
You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.
Robert E. Lee