I started collecting quotes in the fifth grade. Thanks go to my teacher then–Mrs. Voss who made me write “To thine own self be true” 100 times on the blackboard because I was late to class that day.
I was not so thankful at the time, but in the decades that have passed, I have now collected more than 1,000 favorite quotes on topics ranging from appreciation to wisdom. And I have published many of them in books including The Little Book of Gratitude Quotes, The Little Book of Quotes by Women, and The Little Book of Success Quotes. So a belated “thank you” to a great teacher.
Here are some of my favorite gratitude quotes — 52 that I have selected to use as inspiring words to live by in each week of the coming year.
· The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes the home happy and life lovely. — Louisa May Alcott
· Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good. — Maya Angelou
· Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not. — Marcus Aurelius
· A man’s indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude. — Ruth Benedict
· 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
· Got no checkbooks, got no banks. Still I’d like to express my thanks–I’ve got the sun in the mornin’ and the moon at night. — Irving Berlin
· The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. — William Blake
· Blessed are those that can give without remembering and take without forgetting. — Elizabeth Bibesco
· Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. — Bible, Philippians 4:6
· When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? — George Canning
· When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? — G.K. Chesterton
· I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. — G.K. Chesterton
· You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. — G. K. Chesterton
· When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. — G.K. Chesterton
· Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. — Cicero
· If you have lived, take thankfully the past. — John Dryden
· Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds. — Alexandre Dumas
· If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice. — Meister Eckhart
· There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. — Albert Einstein
· Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
· For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
· It is a man of sense who does not grieve for which he has not, but rejoices in what he has. — Epictetus
· I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. — Anne Frank
· 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
· Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun .— Kahlil Gibran
· No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. — Althea Gibson
· Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot. — The Hausa of Nigeria
· Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy cause. — Helen Keller
· 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
· One can never pay in gratitude: One can only “pay in kind” somewhere else in life. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
· Let us be grateful to people who make us happy. They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. — Marcel Proust
· When you drink from a stream, remember the spring. — Chinese Proverb
· They are not poor that have little, but they that desire much. The richest man, whatever his lot, is the one who’s content with whatever he’s got. — Dutch Proverb
· One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind. — Malayan Proverb
· You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give. — Eleanor Roosevelt
· At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us .— Albert Schweitzer
· The greatest gift is the give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life; giving thanks for everything. — Albert Schweitzer
· The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings. — Harriet Beecher Stowe
· When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. — Harriet Beecher Stowe
· Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. — Mark Twain
· No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. — Author Unknown
· Gratitude is the best attitude. — Author Unknown
· Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive. Find a way to be thankful for your troubles and they can become your blessings. — Author Unknown
· Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. — Author Unknown
· Enjoy the little things in life because one day you`ll look back and realize they were the big things. — Kurt Vonnegut
· Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. — William Arthur Ward
· Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. — William Arthur Ward
· God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “thank you?” — William Arthur Ward
· But the value of gratitude does not consist solely in getting you more blessings in the future. Without gratitude you cannot long keep from dissatisfied thought regarding things as they are .— Wallace Wattles
· The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best. Therefore it tends to become the best. It takes the form or character of the best, and will receive the best. — Wallace Wattles
· The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention. — Oscar Wilde
· We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. — Thornton Wilder
And…one more from my grandmother…Thanks for everything!
Originally published at medium.com