Quotable quotes and pithy sayings have always had a strong appeal to me, and I’ve collected them for years. Below are fifty of my favorite quotes on the topic of gratitude and thanksgiving.

50+ Quotes on Thankfulness:

“Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works.”

– 1 Chronicles 16:8-9

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”
– Unknown

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.”
– Cicero

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.

– Charles Dickens

“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

“It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.”

– Naomi Williams


“There is no such thing as gratitude unexpressed. If it is unexpressed, it is plain, old-fashioned ingratitude.”

– Robert Brault

“No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”
– Alfred North Whitehead


“If you can’t be content with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped.”
– Author Unknown





”None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude. Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.”

– Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

“Many people who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of gratitude.”
– Wallace Wattles

“It isn’t what you have in your pocket that makes you thankful, but what you have in your heart.”
– Author Unknown


“It isn’t what you have in your pocket that makes you thankful, but what you have in your heart.”

– Author Unknown


“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.”
– The Hausa of Nigeria

“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


“People who live the most fulfilling lives are the ones who are always rejoicing at what they have.
”

– Richard Carlson


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


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


“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”

– Henry Ward Beecher




“Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.”
– A. J. Cronin


“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily.”
– Gerald Good



“Gratitude is the least of the virtues,
but ingratitude is the worst of vices.”

– Thomas Fuller

“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 5:19-20

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”
– Aldous Huxley

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

— Robert Brault

“There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance.”
– Joseph Addison

“There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.”
– R.H. Blyth


“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

“Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
– John Wooden


“Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His loving devotion endures forever.”
– Psalm 136:1

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

– Marcel Proust

“Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.”
– Estonian Proverb 


“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
– Eric Hoffer

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character
are the ones which strike deepest
in the grateful and appreciating heart.”

– Henry Clay


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


“When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep?”
– George Canning 


“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”

– William Faulkner


“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
– Epictetus

“There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.”
– Ralph H. Blum

“Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don’t unravel.”

– Author Unknown

“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


“God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say ‘thank you?'”
– William A. Ward


”I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

– G.K. Chesterton 


“If you haven’t all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you wouldn’t want.”
– Author Unknown –

“Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.”
– Joseph Wood Krutch –

“If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.”

– Rabbi Harold Kushner

“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

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”
– Doris Day

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”

– Denis Waitley

“If we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy—because we will always want to have something else or something more.”
– Brother David Steindl-Rast

“Blessed are those that can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.”
– Author Unknown

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

– William Arthur Ward 


“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


“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
– John Henry Jowett

“You won’t be happy with more until you’re happy with what you’ve got.”

– Viki King

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
– Henry Miller

“All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”
– Daniel Defoe

More Thanksgiving-Themed Printables

If this resource leaves you wanting more, you can download individually any of the free Thanksgiving printables I’ve published in the past by following this link. Or save time by getting the full collection in my Thankful Hearts Print Pack.