quotations about gratitude
And because gratitude is a form of joy, certainly we can give God not only our gratitude but also our praise, that his glory should be sufficient for our life and our joy.
ARTHUR C. MCGILL
Dying Unto Life
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
THICH NHAT HANH
Peace Is Every Step
Gratitude is a right estimate of our relationship to God, to others, and to life itself, because gratitude is the recognition that no one is a solitary achiever, no one has accumulated success or wealth unaided. Every human being is a debtor.
J. ELLSWORTH KALAS
Longing to Pray
Gratitude is the memory of the heart.
GUILLAUME MASSIEU
attributed, Day's Collacon
He who does not reflect his life back to God in gratitude does not know himself.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
Reverence for Life
There is no excess in the world so commendable as excessive gratitude.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Grateful persons resemble fertile fields, which always repay more than they receive.
JAMES CORNWELL
The Young Composer
Gratitude is a painful pleasure, felt and expressed by none but noble souls.
L. C. JUDSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.
GEORGE MACDONALD
Mary Marston
Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.
C. S. LEWIS
The Screwtape Letters
Gratitude is a motivator of altruistic action, according to Aquinas, because it entails thanking one's benefactors and generating a fitting and appropriate response.
ROBERT A. EMMONS
introduction, The Psychology of Gratitude
Gratitude is a second pleasure, one that prolongs the pleasure that precedes and occasions it, like a joyful echo of the joy we feel, a further happiness for the happiness we have been given.
ANDRE COMTE-SPONVILLE
A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues
No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren't grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
ROY T. BENNETT
The Light in the Heart
You cannot ensure the gratitude of others for a favour conferred upon them in the way which is most agreeable to yourself.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
As gratitude is a necessary, and a glorious virtue, so also it is an obvious, a cheap, and an easy one; so obvious that wherever there is life there is a place for it; so cheap, that the covetous man may be gratified without expense, and so easy that the sluggard may be so likewise without labor.
SENECA
Morals
For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Gifts", Essays
O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI, Part II
Gratitude always comes into play; research shows that people are happier if they are grateful for the positive things in their lives, rather than worrying about what might be missing.
DAN BUETTNER
Thrive
Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant--a seed--this plants the giant miracle.
ANN VOSKAMP
One Thousand Gifts