Sunday, November 20, 2011 – Thanksgiving, the Concept
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
The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. ~John E. Southard
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
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 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
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. ~ Aldous Huxley
The sun will not rise or set without my notice, and thanks. ~ Winslow Homer
Pride slays thanksgiving, but an 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
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
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
He 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
Thank God we’re living in a country where the sky’s the limit, the stores are open late and you can shop in bed thanks to television. ~ Joan Rivers
Thanks to the Japanese and Geronimo, John Wayne became a millionaire. ~ Pat Morita
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
To the people I forgot, you weren’t on my mind for some reason and you probably don’t deserve any thanks anyway. ~ Eminem
It would seem that the ingratitude, whereby a subsequent sin causes the return of sins previously forgiven, is a special sin. For, the giving of thanks belongs to counter passion, which is a necessary condition of justice. But justice is a special virtue. Therefore this ingratitude is a special sin. Thanksgiving is a special virtue. But ingratitude is opposed to thanksgiving. Therefore ingratitude is a special sin. ~ Thomas Aquinas
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
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
Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants. ~ Kevin James
Just Above Sunset 