At this heart-warming time of year, I offer a selection of quotations on gratitude and Thanksgiving:
“There shall be/ Eternal summer in the grateful heart.” Celia Thaxter, “A grateful heart,” Poems, 1872
“Gratitude is the heart’s memory.” Proverb
“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
“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits… the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.” Sarah Ban Breathnach
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” Siddhārtha Gautama, The Buddah
“Many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge.” Judith Martin, Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, 1982
“Gratitude is a physical, mental and emotional tonic. It fosters joy and peace of mind. That’s where you want to be when dealing with others, the best foundation for building bridges, rather than burning them.” Margaret E Anderson
Which of these speak to you?
Have a happy Thanksgiving, and please know how grateful I am for my blog followers and commenters.