Gratitude quotes
2.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside gratitude — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations."
"Where is the man to be found who wishes to remain indebted for the defense of his own person and property to the exertions, the bravery, and the blood of others, without making one generous effort to repay the debt of honor and gratitude?"
"The signal instances of Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good."
"Gratitude produced the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man."
"The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank."
"Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties, is also nearly the most difficult."
"No one's ever done one of my songs badly. People say to me, "God, so-and-so wrecked that song." Well, I'm unaware of it. Anybody doing one of my tunes has earned my gratitude, and I don't get that many covers where I have the luxury to choose."
"I've expressed my gratitude to my son many times. And his career is far from undistinguished, and it was a great privilege to have someone of this skill bringing this album to conclusion."
"I am grateful for what I have. My thanksgiving is perpetual."
"The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation."
"A noble person confers no such gift as his whole confidence: none so exalts the giver and the receiver; it produces the truest gratitude. Perhaps it is only essential to friendship that some vital trust should have been reposed by the one in the other. I feel addressed and probed even to the remotest parts of my being when one nobly shows, even in trivial things, an implicit faith in me.... A threat or a curse may be forgotten, but this mild trust translates me."
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see - i.e. compare it to, something worse or better, that determines whether you are respectively grateful and happy or ungrateful and bitter."
"A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for."
"The prosaic man sees things badly, or with the bodily sense; but the poet sees them clad in beauty, with the spiritual sense."
"Some would find fault with the morning, if they ever got up early enough.. The fault find faults even in Paradise."
"Men of Color, To Arms! The case is before you. This is our golden opportunity. Let us accept it, and forever wipe out the dark reproaches unsparingly hurled against us by our enemies. Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best blessings of our posterity through all time."
"When the gratitude of many to one throws away all shame, we behold fame."
"When the gratitude that many owe to one discards all modesty, then there is fame."
"A refined soul is distressed to know that someone owes it thanks; a crude soul, to know that it owes someone thanks."
"He who bestows something great receives no gratitude; for in accepting it the recipient has already been weighed down too much."
