72 Inspiring Thanksgiving Quotes To Cultivate Gratitude - Utterly Positive (2024)

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As Thanksgiving time is getting closer, the idea of gratitude is getting more attention. Between various fun fall activities, goal chasing, and daily chores, it’s important to step back every once in a while and appreciate all the things you already have. To get you in the mood for pure gratitude, I’ve created this collection of inspiring Thanksgiving quotes!

Things to be grateful for on Thanksgiving

When you are first introduced to the notion of gratitude, it may seem hard to come up with even 5 things to be thankful for. However, by keeping a daily gratitude journal, you’ll soon be able to easily write a few dozens of things you are grateful for in your life. Or even create your own gratitude alphabet!

Think about some simple things you take for granted:

• Roof above your head
• Family members
• Having food for dinner
• Your healthy body
• Beautiful nature around
• …and so on

Now, let’s see all the inspiring Thanksgiving quotes that capture the essence of this holiday!

Beautiful Thanksgiving Day quotes

Thanksgiving Day is a yearly reminder we get to be grateful for all the things that we are blessed with. However, it doesn’t suggest to only get in a thankful mood once a year! Practicing gratitude every day makes your general happiness level higher as you start acknowledging more and more things that are worth being grateful for.

1. Thanksgiving is a time to give, a time to love, and a time to reflect on the things that matter most in life. – Danielle Duckery
2. Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. – Henry Ward Beecher
3. 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. – E.P. Powell
4. Thanksgiving is more than “one dinner.” Thanksgiving is a time for celebrating everything you love. – Robin Kite
5. There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American. – O. Henry
6. For whoever comes into your home, whoever you invite, whoever invites himself, whoever needs to be invited, whoever’s there: Thanksgiving ought to be the best holiday of the year. – Sam Sifton
7. Thanksgiving offers us an annual pause from the pace of life return to places we do not often visit and gather with people we do not often see. – Jay Milbrandt
8. Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. – William Arthur Ward

Short Thanksgiving quotes

Here is a bunch of short quotes on the topic of gratitude and Thanksgiving Day in particular that sum up the whole idea of what thankfulness is all about. If you need even more inspiration, I have some positive Thanksgiving affirmations here!

9. Thanksgiving is good, but ‘thanksliving’ is better. – Anonymous

10. Thanksgiving Day is a good day to recommit our energies to giving thanks and just giving. – Amy Grant

11. The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

William Blake

12. We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count. – Neal A. Maxwell

13. Thanksgiving Grace: The humble act of saying thanks is what this day is all about. – Leslie Barker Garcia

14. Give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of your life. Appreciate and never take for granted all that you have. – Catherine Pulsifer

15. The blessings of harvest time can be found at Thanksgiving. – Theodore W. Higginsworth

16. Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action. – W. J. Cameron

Thanksgiving quotes about family

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to bring all your family members together. With the busy lives we all have, it’s nice to get an opportunity to meet and celebrate our blessings as a family! When you are cooking Thanksgiving dinner with your loved ones or making fun Thankful Turkey crafts with your kids, share one of these quotes with everyone to cultivate a grateful mood.

17. I love Thanksgiving because it is a time of year when families come together. It is a time of year when the days are shorter, the nights are colder, but you feel warmed by the love of those around you. – Sarah Spencer

18. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season, and represents food, family and moments of sharing and professing gratitude. – Sarah Moore

19. Thanksgiving is a fun, family holiday that is celebrated every year! Families get together and, in their own way, give thanks for the Blessings that they enjoy. – Leanne Annett

20. Forever on Thanksgiving Day the heart will find the pathway home. – Wilbur D. Nesbit

21. Thanksgiving is about a lot of things. It’s about being grateful for all of our blessings. It’s about family and friends coming together, sometimes for the first time in a long time. time. It’s about slowing down; it’s about heritage and kindness. – Arnie Lightning

22. A day to give thanks, and receive lots of love, A day to spend with everyone you can think of. – E. Perez

23. Thanksgiving Day is a perfect day to share the love and companionship of family and friends at the Thanksgiving table. – Cheryl Leonard

24. The best of all blessings is to give thanks for at a family gathering is the family and the gathering. – Pedro Carvalho

Healing Thanksgiving quotes

The continuous feeling of gratitude raises your vibration, which not only attracts more good things into your life but also gives you extra energy to heal and rejuvenate. Count your blessings regularly to stay in a high vibe state, strong and powerful!

25. An attitude of gratitude goes a long way when it comes to physical and emotional healing. – Jill Bolte Taylor

26. Whatever you are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of Simple Abundance – it will surely come, but only when you are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart. – Sarah Ban Breathnach

27. You shouldn’t allow people who hurt you to occupy a fraction of your heart. Forgive and move on, especially in this season of thanksgiving. – Assegid Habtewold

28. When you recognize that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows but because of them… the word for that is healing.

Cheryl Strayed

29. Let me encourage you to get up every day and focus on what you do have in life. Be thankful for the blessings of the little things, even when you don’t get what you expect. – Victoria Osteen

30. Thanksgiving for the past makes us trustful in the present and hopeful for the future. – A.C.A. Hall

31. As the years have passed and one Thanksgiving after another has come and gone, I have begun to think about why Thanksgiving has been reserved to one day out of the year. I began to wonder why many people don’t take the time to count the blessings of each day. – Daniella Whyte

32. Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. – Native American Saying

Motivational Thanksgiving quotes for friends

If you are gathering with friends for this Thanksgiving season, share with them one or two of these quotes to cultivate gratitude and immerse in the warm feelings of opening your hearts!

33. But most importantly Thanksgiving, is a day to remember. Be grateful for all you have all year, January straight through to December. – Julie Hebert

34. Stand up, on this Thanksgiving Day, stand upon your feet…. There is not, and there never has been, a better time or a better place to live in. – Phillips Brooks

35. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

36. The Pilgrims displayed another virtue, one they practiced every day and which stood at the heart of the First Thanksgiving. Cicero called it the greatest of the virtues and the parent of all the rest: gratitude. – Melanie Kirkpatrick

37. At this time of year we are reminded of how much we have to be thankful for. My wish for you this Thanksgiving is that you find yourself surrounded by those you love. – Kate Summers

38. What I love about Thanksgiving is that it’s purely about getting together with friends or family and enjoying food. It’s really for everybody, and it doesn’t matter where you’re from. – Daniel Humm

39. Giving thanks to you. My friends, neighbors, and family. Remembering that every day you fill my life with joy. – Allison Waggoner

40. This most of all is the message of Thanksgiving: everything really will be all right. – Sam Sifton

Funny gratitude quotes for Thanksgiving

Gratitude feels so serious, especially when you think of some deep things to be thankful for. But it doesn’t always have to be! Be grateful for the warmth of the water in your shower, the coolness of fresh morning air inside your nose, and the softness of your pillows. And have some fun coming up with creative things to be thankful for!

41. I feel a very unusual sensation – if it is not indigestion, I think it must gratitude. – Benjamin Disraeli

42. Thanksgiving is a special day, a day we share the joy. We come before a lavish meal, one we quite enjoy. – Julie Hebert

43. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. – William Shakespeare

44. Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year. – P.J. O’Rourke

45. Thanksgiving: Bringing out the best in family dysfunction since 1863. – Anonymous

46. Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.

A.A. Milne

47. The best kind of giving is thanksgiving. – Chesterton

48. Thanksgiving is a time to count your blessings, one by one, as each relative goes home. – Melanie White

Thanksgiving quotes for teachers

Can you imagine life without teachers? From basic skills like reading and counting to complicated tasks that we may be doing at work, someone taught it all to us at some point. Let’s be grateful to all the teachers who contributed to who we are today!

49. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. – Carl Jung

50. Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good. – Maya Angelou

51. A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, and touches a heart. – Anonymous

52. Don’t let autumn and its season of gratitude get lost in the blur of Christmas fanfare. Let Thanksgiving have its day – and its attitude – in your heart. – Anonymous

53. Teachers appreciate being appreciated, for teacher appreciation is their highest award. – William Prince

54. If you really are thankful, what do you do? You share. – W. Clement Stone

55. Thanksgiving reminds us that no matter what befalls us in life, we can take the charred remnants and we can reconstruct a life unimaginably richer than that from which the shards and pieces fell. – Craig D. Lounsbrough

56. If you can read this, thank a teacher. – American proverb

Famous thanksgiving day quotes

There is hardly any American who doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Even though the roots of this holiday are religious, you don’t have to believe in a specific God to be grateful for everything you have in your life. It’s simply a nice tradition: a way to gather all your loved ones around one table and express your gratitude. Let’s hear what some famous people have to say about the act of giving thanks!

57. Be present in all things and thankful for all things. – Maya Angelou

58. Be thankful for what you have. You’ll end up having more. – Oprah Winfrey

59. To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do. – Victor Hugo

60. In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices. – Elizabeth Gilbert

61. Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

Eckhart Tolle

62. I love November and the American tradition of Thanksgiving. But in reality, every day should be Thanksgiving. – Sharon Jaynes

63. Not what we say about our blessing, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. – W.T. Purkiser

64. There are two ways to life your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. – Albert Einstein

Thanksgiving quotes for doctors

All the recent events in the world made us appreciate doctors and all medical professionals even more than before. On this Thanksgiving, write a thank-you note for your favorite doctor, or send a nice quote to show your appreciation!

65. The awe of discovering the human body. The honor of being trusted to give advice. The gratitude for helping someone through a difficult illness. These things never grow old. – Danielle Ofri

66. Medicines cure diseases but only doctors can cure patients. – Carl Jung

67. It’s one thing to celebrate Thanksgiving Day every year. It’s another to live on Gratitude Street all the time. People who intentionally count their blessings, express their thanks, and cultivate the quality of finding thanksgiving items in every circ*mstance – those are the people who live on Gratitude Street. – Dr. David Jeremiah

68. We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King

69. People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his kindness, they still remain in his debt. – Seneca

70. Medicine really matured me as a person because, as a physician, you’re obviously dealing with life and death issues… if you can handle that, you can handle anything. – Ken Jeong

71. The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. – Thomas Edison

72. Not all angels have wings, some have stethoscopes.

Found enough inspiring thanksgiving quotes? Read this next

I hope you liked this collection of quotes around Thanksgiving Day! Here is more fun stuff you might enjoy:

12 Thanksgiving Affirmations To Fill Your Heart With Gratitude

A to Z Gratitude List: The Alphabet Of Things To Be Thankful For

11 Positive Things To Do Everyday: Happiness Checklist

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Read more about 7-day gratitude challenge here.