As we head into the winter holidays, I’ve gathered a collection of 31 quotes and passages about gratitude from well-known writers. I hope you enjoy them, and I wish you and your loved ones health and happiness.
“All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.”
The Golden Notebook
“Let all your thinks be thanks.” —W.H. Auden
“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”
—EEat, Pray, Love
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” —Winnie-the-Pooh
“I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.” —Rita Mae Brown
“Don’t let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone.” —Stephen King
“Silent gratitude isn’t very much to anyone.” —Gertrude Stein
“Rest and be thankful.” —William Wordsworth
“Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.” —Barbara Kingsolver
“I can no other answer make, but, thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks.” —William Shakespeare
“‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme humility, gratitude, understanding.” —Alice Walker
“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.” —William Faulkner
“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 AngelouCelebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” —Voltaire
“’I am sure they will be very grateful.’ How would you know? I wanted to say. Often those men in most need hate most to be grateful, and will strike at you just to feel whole again.” —Circe
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” —Thornton Wilder
“I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.” —L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” —
“There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.” —Helen Keller, Light in My Darkness
“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
“My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.” —Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful.”
The Hours
“But once you accept the fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can begin to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them.” —Astrid and Veronika
“For a wise man, I have been told, once said, ‘Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate in empty phrases.’ But alas, my lady, I am but a mass of empty phrases, it would seem.”
—Foundation and Empire
“What can we make of the inexpressible joy of children? It is a kind of gratitude, I think—the gratitude of the ten-year-old who wakes to her own energy and the brisk challenge of the world. You thought you knew the place and all its routines, but you see you hadn’t known. Whole stacks at the library held books devoted to things you knew nothing about. The boundary of knowledge receded, as you poked about in books, like Lake Erie’s rim as you climbed its cliffs. And each area of knowledge disclosed another, and another. Knowledge wasn’t a body, or a tree, but instead air, or space, or being—whatever pervaded, whatever never ended and fitted into the smallest cracks and the widest space between stars.” An American Childhood
“Be grateful in your own hearts. That suffices. Thanksgiving has wings, and flies to its right destination.” —Victor Hugo
“It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.” Pride and Prejudice
“What an astonishment to breathe on this breathing planet. What a blessing to be Earth loving Earth.” The Anthropocene Reviewed
“For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.” —Charlotte Brontë
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” —
“This a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.” —Maya Angelou