One of my daily meditations goes something like this:
God [insert Higher Power of your choosing or understanding]
Take my will and my life;
Guide me in my serenity, my humility and my gratitude; and
Show me how to live, how to love, and how to give.
Some of you may recognize its origin. My contribution is the addition of the phrases seeking guidance with respect to "humility" and "gratitude," "love" and "give." It works for me. The words are not always recited in the same order; usually one will have more pull than another at any given time.
I was talking with some friends the other day about gratitude. Most of us in this over-analytical and hyper-critical world can find multitudes of reasons to be unhappy. Me? I’ve got no woman in my life; my finances are in the dumpster; my son lives with his mother, so I’m not with him everyday; my job prospects at the end of the month are uncertain; I’m being sued in excess of my policy limits for a fender-bender I had in Saipan last year; my clothes don’t fit; my back hurts in the morning from sleeping on a futon on the floor; I think my landlord doesn’t like me; I’m driving a 12 year old gas guzzler; and I’ve got another 20 years to go before I can even dream of retiring. That’s just for starters.
And you know what? It just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Really.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Pollyana. But I have begun to look at the world and my place in it differently these days. And being grateful is something that — like a smile — is so easy to do; and when I do it — and just be grateful for being grateful — the world somehow seems to reciprocate. Bad drivers who cut me off don’t offend me the way they used to. I don’t think about getting even with those who’ve slighted me. All my cares and troubles don’t go away, but they somehow become considerably more manageable. I am far more tolerant and understanding of those around me and am so more likely to be able to reach out to people than I ever was before. All because I try to remember to be grateful. I don’t dwell miserably in the past the way I used to. I don’t would’a, could’a, should’a anymore. I don’t walk in fear of what tomorrow may bring, constantly steadying myself for inevitable catastrophe. All because I’ve learned a little humility and a little gratitude.
As of April 8, 2008, there were 51 people on MySpace whose username was "Gratitude." (It’s also the name of a band, so some could be fans, or the band itself.) Google the word "gratitude." I came up with 20.5M hits.There’s a lot of people onto something out there. That has to mean something. Doesn’t it? I’m not alone in this. And I’m grateful for that, too.
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
*Joseph Addison
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
Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
*Henry Ward Beecher
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.
*Irving Berlin
There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.
*Ralph H. Blum
You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.
*Sarah Ban Breathnach
Every time we remember to say "thank you," we experience nothing less than 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.
*Buddha
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
*Cicero
In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the
gratefulness that makes us happy.
*Albert Clarke
Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.
*A. J. Cronin
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
*Dalai Lama
I feel a very unusual sensation. If it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
*Benjamin Disraeli
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
*Meister Eckhardt
Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.
*Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
*Epictetus
To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
*Johannes A. Gaertner
Find the good — and praise it.
*Alex Haley
Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.
*The Hausa of Nigeria
True thanksgiving means that we need to thank God for what He has done for us, and not to tell Him what we have done for Him.
*George R. Hendrick
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
*Eric Hoffer
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
*John Fitzgerald Kennedy
If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.
*Rabbi Harold Kushner
What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it — would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have.
*Ralph Marston
Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude.
Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.
Thankfulness may consist merely of words.
Gratitude is shown in acts.
*David O. McKay
The sun was shining in my eyes, and I could barely see
To do the necessary task that was allotted me.
Resentment of the vivid glow, I started to complain—
When all at once upon the air I heard the blindman’s cane.
*Earl Musselman
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
*Friedrich Nietzsche
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
*Marcel Proust
To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.
*Albert Schweitzer
Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
*Seneca
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
*William A. Ward
When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.
*Elie Wiesel
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.
*Unknown
Blessed are those that can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.
*Unknown
Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
Be thankful when you don’t know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.
Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.
Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.
Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.
Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.
Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.
It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.
GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.
*Unknown
Earth produces nothing worse than an ungrateful man. [Lat., Nil homine terra pejus ingrato creat.]
*Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Epigrams
That man may last, but never lives,
Who much receives, but nothing gives;
Whom none can love, whom none can thank,
— Creation’s blot, creation’s blank.
*Thomas Gibbons, When Jesus Dwelt
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
*Samuel Johnson, Boswell’s Life of Johnson
You love a nothing when you love an ingrate. [Lat., Nihil amas, cum ingratum amas.]
*Plautus, Titus Maccius Plautus
He is ungrateful who denies that he has received a kindness which has been bestowed upon him; he is ungrateful who conceals it; he is ungrateful who makes no return for it; most ungrateful of all is he who forgets it. [Lat., Ingratus est, qui beneficium accepisse se negat, quod accepit: ingratus est, qui dissimulat; ingratus, qui non reddit; ingratissimus omnium, qui oblitus est.]
*Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De Beneficiis
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude:
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
*William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Ingratitude is monstrous;
and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a monster of the multitude;
of which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.
*William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor’s arms,
Quite vanquished him.
Then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue,
Which all the while ran blood great Caesar fell.
*William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster.
*William Shakespeare, King Lear
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!
*William Shakespeare, King Lear
All the stored vengeances of heaven fall
On her ingrateful top!
*William Shakespeare, King Lear
What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
*William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
I hate ingratitude more in a man
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vie whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood.
*William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or, What You Will
One ungrateful man does an injury to all who are suffering. [Lat., Ingratus unus miseris omnibus nocet.]
*Syrus, Publilius Syrus, Maxims
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good . . . .
*Timothy 3:1-3
He that’s ungrateful has no guilt but one;
All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
*Edward Young, Busiris
God [insert Higher Power of your choosing or understanding]
Take my will and my life;
Guide me in my serenity, my humility and my gratitude; and
Show me how to live, how to love, and how to give.
Some of you may recognize its origin. My contribution is the addition of the phrases seeking guidance with respect to "humility" and "gratitude," "love" and "give." It works for me. The words are not always recited in the same order; usually one will have more pull than another at any given time.
I was talking with some friends the other day about gratitude. Most of us in this over-analytical and hyper-critical world can find multitudes of reasons to be unhappy. Me? I’ve got no woman in my life; my finances are in the dumpster; my son lives with his mother, so I’m not with him everyday; my job prospects at the end of the month are uncertain; I’m being sued in excess of my policy limits for a fender-bender I had in Saipan last year; my clothes don’t fit; my back hurts in the morning from sleeping on a futon on the floor; I think my landlord doesn’t like me; I’m driving a 12 year old gas guzzler; and I’ve got another 20 years to go before I can even dream of retiring. That’s just for starters.
And you know what? It just doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Really.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Pollyana. But I have begun to look at the world and my place in it differently these days. And being grateful is something that — like a smile — is so easy to do; and when I do it — and just be grateful for being grateful — the world somehow seems to reciprocate. Bad drivers who cut me off don’t offend me the way they used to. I don’t think about getting even with those who’ve slighted me. All my cares and troubles don’t go away, but they somehow become considerably more manageable. I am far more tolerant and understanding of those around me and am so more likely to be able to reach out to people than I ever was before. All because I try to remember to be grateful. I don’t dwell miserably in the past the way I used to. I don’t would’a, could’a, should’a anymore. I don’t walk in fear of what tomorrow may bring, constantly steadying myself for inevitable catastrophe. All because I’ve learned a little humility and a little gratitude.
As of April 8, 2008, there were 51 people on MySpace whose username was "Gratitude." (It’s also the name of a band, so some could be fans, or the band itself.) Google the word "gratitude." I came up with 20.5M hits.There’s a lot of people onto something out there. That has to mean something. Doesn’t it? I’m not alone in this. And I’m grateful for that, too.
RANDOM COLLECTED QUOTES ~ GRATITUDE
A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.
*Joseph Addison
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
Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
*Henry Ward Beecher
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.
*Irving Berlin
There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.
*Ralph H. Blum
You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.
*Sarah Ban Breathnach
Every time we remember to say "thank you," we experience nothing less than 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.
*Buddha
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
*Cicero
In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the
gratefulness that makes us happy.
*Albert Clarke
Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.
*A. J. Cronin
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
*Dalai Lama
I feel a very unusual sensation. If it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
*Benjamin Disraeli
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
*Meister Eckhardt
Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.
*Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
*Epictetus
To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
*Johannes A. Gaertner
Find the good — and praise it.
*Alex Haley
Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.
*The Hausa of Nigeria
True thanksgiving means that we need to thank God for what He has done for us, and not to tell Him what we have done for Him.
*George R. Hendrick
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
*Eric Hoffer
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
*John Fitzgerald Kennedy
If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.
*Rabbi Harold Kushner
What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it — would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have.
*Ralph Marston
Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude.
Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.
Thankfulness may consist merely of words.
Gratitude is shown in acts.
*David O. McKay
The sun was shining in my eyes, and I could barely see
To do the necessary task that was allotted me.
Resentment of the vivid glow, I started to complain—
When all at once upon the air I heard the blindman’s cane.
*Earl Musselman
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
*Friedrich Nietzsche
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
*Marcel Proust
To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.
*Albert Schweitzer
Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
*Seneca
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
*William A. Ward
When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.
*Elie Wiesel
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.
*Unknown
Blessed are those that can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.
*Unknown
Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
Be thankful when you don’t know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.
Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.
Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.
Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.
Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.
Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.
It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.
GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.
*Unknown
RANDOM COLLECTED QUOTES ~ INGRATITUDE
Earth produces nothing worse than an ungrateful man. [Lat., Nil homine terra pejus ingrato creat.]
*Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Epigrams
That man may last, but never lives,
Who much receives, but nothing gives;
Whom none can love, whom none can thank,
— Creation’s blot, creation’s blank.
*Thomas Gibbons, When Jesus Dwelt
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
*Samuel Johnson, Boswell’s Life of Johnson
You love a nothing when you love an ingrate. [Lat., Nihil amas, cum ingratum amas.]
*Plautus, Titus Maccius Plautus
He is ungrateful who denies that he has received a kindness which has been bestowed upon him; he is ungrateful who conceals it; he is ungrateful who makes no return for it; most ungrateful of all is he who forgets it. [Lat., Ingratus est, qui beneficium accepisse se negat, quod accepit: ingratus est, qui dissimulat; ingratus, qui non reddit; ingratissimus omnium, qui oblitus est.]
*Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De Beneficiis
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude:
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
*William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Ingratitude is monstrous;
and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a monster of the multitude;
of which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.
*William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor’s arms,
Quite vanquished him.
Then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue,
Which all the while ran blood great Caesar fell.
*William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster.
*William Shakespeare, King Lear
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!
*William Shakespeare, King Lear
All the stored vengeances of heaven fall
On her ingrateful top!
*William Shakespeare, King Lear
What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
*William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
I hate ingratitude more in a man
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vie whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood.
*William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or, What You Will
One ungrateful man does an injury to all who are suffering. [Lat., Ingratus unus miseris omnibus nocet.]
*Syrus, Publilius Syrus, Maxims
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good . . . .
*Timothy 3:1-3
He that’s ungrateful has no guilt but one;
All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
*Edward Young, Busiris
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