Gratitude Quotes

Gratitude is a feeling of recognition and appreciation for what is good in your life.  Gratitude as a practice expresses that feeling in words and deeds.  What’s the opposite of gratitude? The opposite might include taking good experiences for granted, accepting those good experiences grudgingly, or regretting the past.  Gratitude is a result of and contributor to personal happiness and to rewarding and stable relationships.

Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing. Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love. Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns.

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

Come into my lap and sit in the center of your soul. Drink the living waters of memory and give birth to yourself. What you unearth will stun you. You will paint the walls of this cave in thanksgiving.

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.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

True rest doesn’t affect us only when we are resting. It spills over into our weeks, our years, our very lives. The days preceding the day of rest become days of excitement and expectation. Even the most harried workdays become tolerable when you know a day or holy peace is shortly arriving. The days succeeding the day of rest become days of light, too. They shimmer with the afterglow of a revived spirit.

True rest gives us a completely different perspective on all of life’s difficulties. It allows us to heal, to reflect, to give thanks, and to face whatever lies ahead with a renewed sense of calm.

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.

Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry

In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness. The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need. Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy. That’s good medicine for land and people alike.

Grief can awaken us to new values and new and deeper appreciations. Grief can cause us to reprioritize things in our lives, to recognize what’s really important and put it first. Grief can heighten our gratitude as we cease taking the gifts life bestows on us for granted. Grief can give us the wisdom of being with death. Grief can make death the companion on our left who guides us and gives us advice. None of this growth makes the loss good and worthwhile, but it is the good that comes out of the bad.

Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.

The more you express gratitude for what you have the more you will have to express gratitude for.