50 Thankful Quotes for Practicing Gratitude All Year Long

The best thankful quotes to show your appreciation for life's blessings.

Every Thanksgiving we gather around the table and give thanks for our family, friends and the good food we’re about to eat. But what about the rest of the year? Starting a daily practice of gratitude can help you recognize the positive in your life instead of focusing on the negative. And being thankful and grateful for all the good things you have can actually make you happier.

If you’re feeling down or just need a little pick-me-up, here are some inspiring quotes on thankfulness to remind you of your blessings—not just on Thanksgiving, but all through the year.

Thankful Quotes

1. “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

2. “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

3. “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. “For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
—Elie Wiesel

5. “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
—Charles Dickens

6. “Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”
—William Faulkner

Related: Bible Verses About Gratitude

7. “Strive to find things to be thankful for, and just look for the good in who you are.”
—Bethany Hamilton

8. “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
—Voltaire

9. “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”
—Anthony Robbins

10. “If a fellow isn't thankful for what he’s got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get.”
—Frank A. Clark

11. “When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.”
—Tecumseh

12. “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
—William Arthur Ward

13. “Before I get out of bed, I am saying thank you. I know how important it is to be thankful.”
—Al Jarreau

14. “Be grateful in your own hearts. That suffices. Thanksgiving has wings, and flies to its right destination.”
—Victor Hugo

Related: 100 Get-Well Wishes to Write in a Card

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

16. “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
—G.K. Chesterton

17. “I feel a very unusual sensation—if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.”
—Benjamin Disraeli

18. “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
—Eckhart Tolle

19. “I have a lot to be thankful for. I am healthy, happy and I am loved.”
—Reba McEntire

20. “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.”
—Vietnamese Proverb

21. “The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields, and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it.”
—Michael Josephson

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

23. “The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.”
—William James

24. “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”
—Henri Frederic Amiel

25. “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
—Willie Nelson

26. “Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone.”
—Gertrude Stein

27. “One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.”
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

28. “We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.”
—Neal A. Maxwell

29. “This a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before.”
—Maya Angelou

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

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

32. “Make it a habit to tell people, ‘thank you.’ To express your appreciation sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you’ll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you’ll find that you have more of it.”
—Ralph Marston

33. “‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say.”
—Alice Walker

34. “Thanksgiving is a special virtue. But ingratitude is opposed to Thanksgiving. Therefore ingratitude is a special sin.”
—Thomas Aquinas

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

Related: Best Thanksgiving Quotes

36. “We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.”
—Albert Barnes

37. “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

38. “We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.”
—Harry A. Ironside

39. “Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.”
—W. T. Purkiser

40. “Got no checkbooks, got no banks, still I’d like to express my thanks. I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.”
—Irving Berlin

41. “Enough is a feast.”
—Buddhist Proverb

Related: 101 Buddha Quotes

42. “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 Bront?

43. “The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.”
—Hannah Whitall Smith

44. “No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.”
—James Allen

45. “Whatever we are waiting for—peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance—it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.”
—Sarah Ban Breathnach

46. “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”
—Karl Barth

47. “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
—Melody Beattie

48. “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
—Albert Schweitzer

49. “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.”
—Meister Eckhart

50. “I can no other answer make, but, thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks.”
—William Shakespeare

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