Monday, November 19, 2007

Words on Gratitude & Thanksgiving, Part 1

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

Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.
--Jackie Windspear

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.
--Estonian Proverb

You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.
--Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?"
--William A. Ward

O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
-- William Shakespeare

Gratitude consists of being more aware of what you have, than what you don’t.
–Unknown

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
--Cynthia Ozick

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
--Harper Lee

To know the value of generosity, it is necessary to have suffered from the cold indifference of others.
--Eugene Cloutier

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.
--Horace

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.
--Henry Clay

How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child's personality. A child is resentful, negative—or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people.
-- Sir John Templeton

Gratitude ... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
--Henri J. M. Nouwen

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
--Thornton Wilder

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it
--William Arthur Ward

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

Thank God every day when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.
-- Basil Carpenter

When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.
--Chinese Proverb

Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel.
--Author Unknown

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
-- Aesop Fables

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