Giving Thanks

Sunday, November 22, 2020 – Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for – annually, not oftener – if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments. ~ Mark Twain

Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. ~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn. ~ Jeremy Bentham

Thanks be to God. Since my leaving the drinking of wine, I do find myself much better, and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company. ~ Samuel Pepys

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~ G. K. Chesterton

I feel a very unusual sensation. If it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone. ~ G. B. Stern

There is no such thing as gratitude unexpressed. If it is unexpressed, it is plain, old-fashioned ingratitude. ~ Robert Brault

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do. ~ Victor Hugo

If you have lived, take thankfully the past. ~ John Dryden

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

Gratitude is the least of the virtues, but ingratitude is the worst of vices. ~ Thomas Fuller

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

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors. ~ François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. ~ H. L. Mencken

Thanks to the Japanese and Geronimo, John Wayne became a millionaire. ~ Pat Morita

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. ~ Aldous Huxley

What a miserable thing life is: you’re living in clover, only the clover isn’t good enough. ~ Bertolt Brecht, Jungle of Cities, 1924

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

Gratitude – the meanest and most sniveling attribute in the world. ~ Dorothy Parker

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs. ~ Joseph Stalin

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness. ~ Immanuel Kant

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people. ~ Samuel Johnson

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked – as I am surprisingly often – why I bother to get up in the mornings. ~ Richard Dawkins

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~ Albert Schweitzer

The trick is to be grateful when your mood is high and graceful when it is low. ~ Richard Carlson

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. ~ William Blake

Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson