50 Thankful Quotes for Practicing Gratitude All Year Long
The best thankful quotes to show your appreciation for life's blessings.
Every Thanksgiving we gather around the table and give thanks for our family, friends and the good food we’re about to eat. But what about the rest of the year? Starting a daily practice of gratitude can help you recognize the positive in your life instead of focusing on the negative. And being thankful and grateful for all the good things you have can actually make you happier.
If you’re feeling down or just need a little pick-me-up, here are some inspiring quotes on thankfulness to remind you of your blessings—not just on Thanksgiving, but all through the year.
Thankful Quotes
1. “Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.”
—Oprah Winfrey
2. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”
—John F. Kennedy
3. “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. “For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
—Elie Wiesel
5. “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
—Charles Dickens
6. “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”
—William Faulkner
Related: Bible Verses About Gratitude
7. “Strive to find things to be thankful for, and just look for the good in who you are.”
—Bethany Hamilton
8. “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
—Voltaire
9. “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”
—Anthony Robbins
10. “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
11. “When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.”
—Tecumseh
12. “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
—William Arthur Ward
13. “Before I get out of bed, I am saying thank you. I know how important it is to be thankful.”
—Al Jarreau
14. “Be grateful in your own hearts. That suffices. Thanksgiving has wings, and flies to its right destination.”
—Victor Hugo
Related: 100 Get-Well Wishes to Write in a Card
15. “A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.”
—Cicero
16. “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
—G.K. Chesterton
17. “I feel a very unusual sensation—if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.”
—Benjamin Disraeli
18. “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
—Eckhart Tolle
19. “I have a lot to be thankful for. I am healthy, happy and I am loved.”
—Reba McEntire
20. “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.”
—Vietnamese Proverb
21. “The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields, and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it.”
—Michael Josephson
22. “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
—Epictetus
23. “The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.”
—William James
24. “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”
—Henri Frederic Amiel
25. “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
—Willie Nelson
26. “Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone.”
—Gertrude Stein
27. “One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.”
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh
28. “We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.”
—Neal A. Maxwell
29. “This a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before.”
—Maya Angelou
30. “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
—Thornton Wilder
31. “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
—Robert Brault
32. “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
33. “‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say.”
—Alice Walker
34. “Thanksgiving is a special virtue. But ingratitude is opposed to Thanksgiving. Therefore ingratitude is a special sin.”
—Thomas Aquinas
35. “Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.”
—Estonian Proverb
Related: Best Thanksgiving Quotes
36. “We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.”
—Albert Barnes
37. “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
38. “We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.”
—Harry A. Ironside
39. “Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.”
—W. T. Purkiser
40. “Got no checkbooks, got no banks, still I’d like to express my thanks. I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.”
—Irving Berlin
41. “Enough is a feast.”
—Buddhist Proverb
Related: 101 Buddha Quotes
42. “For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.”
—Charlotte Brontë
43. “The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.”
—Hannah Whitall Smith
44. “No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.”
—James Allen
45. “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
46. “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”
—Karl Barth
47. “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
—Melody Beattie
48. “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
—Albert Schweitzer
49. “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.”
—Meister Eckhart
50. “I can no other answer make, but, thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks.”
—William Shakespeare
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