112 Best Thankful Quotes, Sayings, and Messages

In recent years, people have started to ring in the New Year by creating thankfulness journals and gratitude jars, the idea being that it’s important to begin a habit of gratitude that is maintained throughout the year. But as post-New-Year life starts to take hold, the good intentions behind the journals and jars fade, and with them, the idea that we should express our thanks every day of the year and not just at its beginning. Quotes and messages about being thankful and having gratitude bring us back to these good intentions, reminding us to focus on the positive instead of the negative, thereby offering our hearts a spiritual reset and renewing our relationships and lives in the process.

The 112 thankful quotes, sayings, and messages in this post serve as a springboard for gratitude for us. They point our attention toward all that’s good in our lives and in the process, invite more good in. They’re quotes for every relationship and for many of life’s most important passages and occasions.

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112 Thankful Quotes, Sayings, and Messages for All Occasions

Thankfulness and Appreciation Quotes For and About Friends

When you were five, you and your bestie hugged bugs and made mud pies. When you were 10, you experienced your first crushes together. And when you were 20, you left your life and your crushes behind to explore new worlds on college campuses and volunteer opportunities around the globe.

While your friends may not have physically gone with you on your 20-something adventures, they danced and wandered with you in spirit, acting as important catalysts for your change and your growth. These quotes express the gratitude you feel for them that often goes unspoken and yet remains, even as our 20s, 30s, and beyond fade into memory.

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.” – Jane Austen
“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” – Woodrow Wilson
“I found out what the secret to life is—friends. Best friends.” – Ninny Threadgoode, Fried Green Tomatoes
“Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life—and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.”— Dean Koontz
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
“Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.” – John Evelyn
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.” – Robert Brault
“Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.”— Dorothy Parker
“There’s nothing like a really loyal, dependable, good friend. nothing.” – Jennifer Aniston
“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence, and admires the flowers in your garden.”— Unknown

Gratitude Quotes For and About Family

Your family plays an extraordinary role in your life. They see you in your PJs on Christmas morning and hear about your dreams in the morning over Captain Crunch and toast. They also regularly push your buttons and act as a motivator of dreams and a source of endless wit. Your family gets you to do more and go farther than you ever thought you could. These quotes help you celebrate your family and offer those you love an expression of gratitude and thankfulness that’s often nearly impossible to put into words.

“Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.” – Eileen Caddy
“Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” – David Ogden Stiers
“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.” – Kristin Armstrong
“Let me always count my blessings. To be thankful for my family and friends. To be thankful for the simple things that life has to offer.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” –Michael J. Fox
“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” – George Santayana
“Family is a unique gift that needs to be appreciated and treasured, even when they’re driving you crazy. As much as they make you mad, interrupt you, annoy you, curse at you, try to control you, these are the people who know you the best and who love you.” – Jenna Morasca
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” – Richard Bach
“The greatest gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.” — Kendall Hailey
“So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.” — Haniel Long
¨You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.¨ — Desmond Tutu
“In time of test, family is best.” – Burmese Proverb

Gratitude and Appreciation Quotes For Loved Ones

Our loved ones, whether they be our closest friends, our close and distant family members, or a cherished mentor, bring out the best in us. They hold space for us as we navigate life’s challenges and encourage us to move onward and upward regardless of the circumstances. These quotes help you express your appreciation for those you love.

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” — Lao Tzu
“When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.” – Anonymous
“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together. Keep me in your heart. I’ll be there forever.” – Winnie the Pooh
“Grief is the price we pay for love.” – Queen Elizabeth II
“The best times we’ve had on earth are usually with those we love.” ― Van Harden, Life in the Purple Wedge!
“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” – The Wonder Years
“Thank you, Mom. We will always be grateful for the life lessons you taught and the love you shared.” – Sandra Bullock Smith
“Having a place to go is a home. Having someone to love is a family. Having both is a blessing.” – Donna Hedges
“Gratitude is a two-fold love. Love coming to visit us and love running out to greet a welcome guest.” – Henry Van Dyke
“I’ve decided that there isn’t much difference in the way we treat our siblings and the way we treat our special someones. But at the end of it all we know our siblings have to forgive us…or they’ll never be able to borrow our car.” – Emma Daley
“The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.” – Hubert H. Humphrey

Appreciation and Gratitude Quotes For Teachers

There is a famous anonymous quote about teaching and educators that reads like this: “Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.” That quote reaches the heart of the matter.

Every profession, every life, every bit of wisdom comes from the people who taught us how to access the mysteries of the world via storybooks, math problems, and field trips to far off vistas. These quotes of appreciation for our teachers give kudos to the unsung and uncaped heroes in our midst.

“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.” – Alexander the Great
“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.” – Fred Rogers
“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” – Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” – Mark Van Doren
“Intelligence plus character– that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry Brooks Adams
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry Brooks Adams
“A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.” –Darwin D. Martin
“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai
“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats
“It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.” – Tom Brokaw
“Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.” – Scott Hayden
“If you can read this, thank a teacher.” – American Proverb
“Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.” – Sidney Hook
“When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.” – Dalai Lama

Thankful Quotes and Messages For Carers

Truly, few people will see you at your most challenged in the way that your carer will. The caregivers in our lives are the heroes that step in when the rest of the world has stepped out on us. The best careers nurse our wounds and our hearts, helping us through some of life’s most difficult transitions.

As such, it’s nearly impossible to express the kind of gratitude our carers deserve but rarely ask for. These quotes encapsulate some of the most important roles that caregivers in our lives play and do so with dignity, honesty, and grace.

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” — Leo Buscaglia
“Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.” — Wayne Dyer
“There will come a time when your loved one is gone, and you will find comfort in the fact that you were their caregiver.” — Karen Coetzer
“Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief. If you are a doctor or surgeon, your expertise and knowledge comes from a superior position. But when our role is to be providers of care, we should be there as equals.” – Judy Cornish
“To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.” ― Tia Walker
“It is not the load that breaks you down. It’s the way you carry it.” — Lena Horne
“Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain of energy.” – Chogyam Trungpa
“Sometimes our work as caregivers is not for the faint of heart. But, you will never know what you’re made of until you step into the fire. Step bravely.” – Deborah A. Beasley
“Kindness can transform someone’s dark moment with a blaze of light. You’ll never know how much your caring matters. Make a difference for another today.” – Amy Lee Mercree
“Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness.” ― Rollo May
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” – Mother Teresa

Thankful Quotes For and About Colleagues and Leaders

These thankful quotes for and about our colleagues and leaders point toward one awesome truth: Who you hang out with has a profound effect on who you become. If you are a leader of people, read through the wisdom of these quotes and take in the lessons they teach you with an attitude of thankfulness and grace.

If you are a person being led or who has a deep appreciation for the colleagues who make your work life more comfortable and rewarding, then allow them to soak into your heart. And eventually, when the time is right, pass on the wisdom and gratitude you learn from these quotes on to someone else.

“A grateful mind is a great mind, which eventually attracts to itself great things.” – Plato
“If you can’t reward, then you should thank.” – Arabic proverb
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. – John F. Kennedy
“One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“Learn to be thankful for what you already have, while you pursue all that you want.” – Jim Rohn
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu
“Develop an attitude of gratitude and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.” – Brian Tracy
“Stop thinking of gratitude as a byproduct of your circumstances and start thinking of it as a worldview.” – Bryan Robles
“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” – Anthony Robbins
“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for the experience.’” – Oprah Winfrey
“It is necessary to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” – Wallace D. Wattles
“The longer you linger in gratitude, the more you draw your new life to you. For gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership.” – Dr. Joe Dispenza
“Gratitude is a form of worship in its own right, as it implies the acceptance of a power greater than yourself.” – Stephen Richards
“When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.” – Tecumseh

Humorous Thankful Quotes

Although gratitude and thankfulness are serious business for the sincere of heart, the expression of these virtues doesn’t have to be. These humorous thankful quotes remind us that laughter combined with a healthy dose of gratitude is truly the best medicine there is!

“God gave us our relatives; thank God we can choose our friends.” — Ethel Watts Mumford
“In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” – Bertrand Russell
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” – Eric Hoffer
“Silent gratitude isn’t very much to anyone.” – Gertrude Stein
“My socks may not match, but my feet are always warm.” Maureen McCullough
“I feel a very unusual sensation — if it is not indigestion, I think it must be Gratitude.” – Benjamin Disraeli
“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.” – Woody Allen
“The thing I’m most grateful for right now is elastic waistbands.” – Anonymous
“Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.” Rumi
“Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn’t changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I’m just wearing better shoes.” – Oprah Winfrey
“We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.” – Bill Vaughan

Short and Concise Thankful Quotes & Messages

Thankful quotes don’t have to be lengthy to be meaningful as the following messages demonstrate. Because they’re so short, they’re easy to memorize and easy to meditate on when life gets challenging. And as you turn your hearts to gratitude, they’ll remind you that all the best things in life come to us when we maintain thoughts of thankfulness.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.” – Ann Brashares
“Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.” – Alfred Painter
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” – G.K. Chesterson
“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.” – Doris Day
“When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.” – Vietnamese proverb
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving It.” – William Arthur Ward
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” – Meister Eckhart
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all the others.” – Cicero
“If you’re not grateful for what you already have, why should you be blessed with more.” – Germany Kent
Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” – Mencius
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” – Aesop
“The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.” – Robert Holden
“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.” – James Allen

Gratitude and Thankfulness Quotes About Life

Sometimes, it’s not the people in our lives for whom we have gratitude and thankfulness. It’s for life itself. Life, in all its crazy and sometimes maddening wonder, has much to teach us, and when it gets the most difficult, that’s often the time for the most gratitude because the deepest, most lasting lessons and gifts often come from those challenging times. These quotes remind you to take that attitude of gratitude and to be open to all the gifts that being thankful has to offer.

“God gave burdens; he also gave shoulders.” — Yiddish Proverb
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” — Bernice Johnson Reagon
“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” – W.T. Purkiser
“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.” – Douglas Wood
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things which you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch heaven.” —Johannes Gaertner
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” – Epictetus
“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” — Emory Austin
“Be determined to handle any challenge in a way that will make you grow.” — Les Brown
“If you haven’t all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you wouldn’t want.” – Anonymous
“What you truly acknowledge truly is yours. Invite your heart to be grateful and your thank-yous will be heard even when you don’t use words.” – Pavithra Mehta
“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light” – Helen Keller

Final Thoughts on Thankful Quotes, Sayings, and Messages

Although many people offer thanks and gratitude at special times of the year, like Thanksgiving or the dawn of the New Year, the truth is, an attitude of gratitude works best if it’s a year-round thing. These thankful quotes serve as reminders to us that the recipients of our gratitude play an important role in our growth and development throughout life.

For more inspirational quotes and messages, see our in-depth guides to:

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