Gratitude

Gratitude, appreciation, or thankfulness is a positive emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.

Sourced

  • Thank you for nothing.
  • When I'm not thank'd at all, I'm thank'd enough,
    I've done my duty, and I've done no more.
    • Henry Fielding, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (1730), Act I, scene 3.
  • Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
  • Do not let the empty cup be your first teacher of the blessings you had when it was full. Do not let a hard place here and there in the bed destroy your rest. Seek, as a plain duty, to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.
    • Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 290.
  • A grateful mind
    By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
    Indebted and discharg'd.
  • Whoever does not express his gratitude to people will never be grateful to God.
    • Muhammad, reported in al-Tirmidhī, al-Ţabarānī, Musnad Ahmad, Musnad Abū Hanīfah, Musnad Abu Ya'la.
  • The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.
  • Your bounty is beyond my speaking;
    But though my mouth be dumb, my heart shall thank you.
  • Now the good gods forbid
    That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
    Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
    In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
    Should now eat up her own!
  • Let but the commons hear this testament—
    Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read—
    And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds
    And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,
    Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
    And, dying, mention it within their wills,
    Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
    Unto their issue.
  • Thankfulness is the tune of angels.
    • Edmund Spenser, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 290.
  • To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.
  • We can set our deeds to the music of a grateful heart, and seek to round our lives into a hymn — the melody of which will be recognized by all who come in contact with us, and the power of which shall not be evanescent, like the voice of the singer, but perennial, like the music of the spheres.
    • William Mackergo Taylor, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 290.
  • Did you ever think of the reason why the Psalms of David have come, like winged angels, down across all the realms and ages,— why they make the key-note of grateful piety in every Christian's soul, wherever he lives? Why? Because they are so full of gratitude. " Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men!"
    • Alphonso Albert Willits, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 290.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 336-37.
  • If hush'd the loud whirlwind that ruffled the deep,
    The sky if no longer dark tempests deform;
    When our perils are past shall our gratitude sleep?
    No! Here's to the pilot that weather'd the storm!
    • George Canning, Song (on "Billy Pitt"); sung at a public dinner (May 28, 1802).
  • Gratus animus est una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquarum.
    • A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
    • Cicero, Oratio Pro Cnæo Plancio, XXXIII.
  • Gratitude is expensive.
  • The still small voice of gratitude.
  • La reconnaissance est la mémoire du cœur.
    • Gratitude is the memory of the heart.
    • Massieu to the Abbé Sicard.
  • Gratia pro rebus merito debetur inemtis.
    • Thanks are justly due for things got without purchase.
    • Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), I, 10, 43.
  • Conveniens homini est hominem servare voluptas.
    Et melius nulla quæritur arte favor.
    • It is a pleasure appropriate to man, for him to save a fellow-man, and gratitude is acquired in no better way.
    • Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, II. 9. 39.
  • Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind!
  • Non est diuturna possessio in quam gladio ducimus; beneficiorum gratia sempiterna est.
    • That possession which we gain by the sword is not lasting; gratitude for benefits is eternal.
    • Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, VIII, 8.,11.
  • Qui gratus futurus est statim dum accipit de reddendo cogitet.
    • Let the man, who would be grateful, think of repaying a kindness, even while receiving it.
    • Seneca, De Beneficiis, II. 25.
  • I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
    With coldness still returning;
    Alas! the gratitude of men
    Hath often left me mourning.
Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 785.
  • From too much love of living,
    From hope and fear set free,
    We thank with brief thanksgiving
    Whatever gods may be,
    That no life lives forever,
    That dead men rise up never;
    That even the weariest river
    Winds somewhere safe to sea.
↑Jump back a section

Unsourced

  • We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
    • Frederick Keonig
↑Jump back a section

External links

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Wiktionary-logo-en.svg
Look up gratitude in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
↑Jump back a section
Last modified on 9 January 2013, at 17:12