Thanksgiving Quotes by Famous Writers

“This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”—Psalm 118:24 NASB

Aesop (620 BC–560 BC): "Gratitude is the sign of noble souls."

Alexander Pope (1688–1744):

"Our rural ancestors, with little blest,

Patient of labour when the end was rest,

Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,

With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain."

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914): "Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude."

Anne Frank (1929–1945): "I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy."

Cicero (106 BC–43 BC): "A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues."

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962): "I thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of the trees and a blue dream of sky."

E.P. Powell (1832–1915): "Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude."

Epictetus (55–135): "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 –1832): "If we meet someone who owes us thanks, we right away remember that. But how often do we meet someone to whom we owe thanks without remembering that?"

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892): "Ah! On Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and South, come the pilgrim and guest,

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.

What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?"

John Henry Jowett (1864–1923): "Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road."

Irving Berlin (1888–1989): "Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night."

Mark Twain (1835–1910): "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."

O. Henry (1862–1910): "There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882): "For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends."

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882): "I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new."

Robert Burns (1759–1796): "Some hae meat and canna eat, - And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thank it."

Sadi (1213–1291): "Once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes I came to the chief of Kufah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience."

Sir John Templeton (1912–2008): "How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child's personality. A child is resentful, negative—or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people."

William Faulkner (1897–1962): "Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”