Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Thankfulness

"Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation." - George Canning

"All our discontents spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have." - Daniel Defoe, born Daniel Foe

"However bitter the cup we have to drink, we are sure it contains nothing unnecessary or unkind; and we should take it from His hand with as much meekness as we accept of eternal life with thankfulness." - William Goodell

"If I do not feel a sense of joy in God’s creation, if I forget to offer the world back to God with thankfulness, I have advanced very little upon the Way. I have not yet learned to be truly human. For it is only through thanksgiving that I can become myself." - Saint John of Kronstadt, fully John Il’ich Serguiev, aka Holy Father John of the Kronstadt NULL

"Our whole life should speak forth our thankfulness; every condition and place we are in should be a witness to our thankfulness. This will make the times and places we live in better for us. When we ourselves are monuments of God’s mercy, it is fit we should be patterns of His praises, and leave monuments to others. We should think it given to us to do something better than to live in. We live not to live: our life is not the end of itself, but the praise of the giver." - Richard Sibbes

"My soul was not only brought into harmony with itself and with God, but with God’s providence. In the exercise of faith and love, I endured and performed whatever came in God’s providence, in submission, in thankfulness, and silence." -

"The end of worship amongst men is power. For where a man seeth another worshipped, he supposeth him powerful, and is the readier to obey him; which makes his power greater. But God has no ends: the worship we do him proceeds from our duty and is directed according to our capacity by those rules of honor that reason dictateth to be done by the weak to the more potent men, in hope of benefit, for fear of damage, or in thankfulness for good already received from them." - Thomas Hobbes

"My brother, you cannot forget your sins; but it lies within your own decision whether the remembrance shall be thankfulness and blessedness, or whether it shall be pain and loss forever." - Alexander Maclaren

"The key to achieving everlasting happiness involves an enlightened four-prong approach: (1) understanding and loving others; (2) being virtuous and serving others; (3) living life fully and in the present; and (4) adopting an indomitable spirit of thankfulness." - Gary W. Fanchuk

"We have become so preoccupied with power and control over nature that we have lost an important dimension of our being, the disposition of thankfulness, of commemoration, of perceiving and enjoying something for its own sake. Instead of viewing these immediate objects of our environment in terms of their own being, we have come to regard them solely in terms of what they are for us. And to such an exploitative mentality, nature’s own voice becomes mute. Approached as material merely, to be worked up and pressed into the service of a self-styled lord of creation, she contains no revelation and no blessing." - J. Glenn Gray

"Even while we mourn the death of a loved one, there is room in our hearts for thankfulness for that life… Sober reflection can also lead us to a more sympathetic appreciation of the vital role death plays in the economy of life. Life’s significant and zest issue from our awareness of its transiency, its “fragile contingency.” The urge to create, the passion to perfect, the will to heal and cure – all the noblest of human enterprises grow in the soil of human mortality." - Sidney Greenberg

"“Every morning of the world I give thanks for all the wonderful things in my life,” declared a young man enthusiastically. “And do you know something? It’s strange indeed, but the more I give thanks, the more I have reason to be thankful. For, you see, blessings just pile up on me one after another like nobody’s business”... The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for... The attitude of gratitude revitalizes the entire mental process by activating all other attitudes, thus stimulating creativity... Remember that praise and thanksgiving are the most powerful prayers of all." - Norman Vincent Peale

"My approach towards life is that of laughter. And laughter contains love, laughter contains joy and laughter contains gratitude. Laughter contains a tremendous thankfulness towards God." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And - every - single - one - of- them - is - right!" - Rudyard Kipling

"Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement." - Willa Cather, fully Willa Sibert Cather

"While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell