250 Thanksgiving Quote of the Day: Best Grateful Lines

Read one each day through November, share them around the table, or tuck them into place cards. However you use them, may they turn an ordinary morning into a small thanksgiving of its own. (For the holiday’s story, see Thanksgiving.)

Why Read a Thanksgiving Quote of the Day?

A single thoughtful line in the morning can set the tone for the whole day. These quotes are short enough to read in a minute and deep enough to carry with you — pick today’s, and let gratitude do the rest.

Editor’s Picks

Classic Thanksgiving Quotes

Timeless lines that capture what the holiday has always meant.

1. “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” — Abraham Lincoln
2. “On Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence.” — William Jennings Bryan
3. “Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others.” — Margaret Cousins
4. “The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.” — H.U. Westermayer
5. “Give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of your life.” — Catherine Pulsifer
6. “We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.” — Harry A. Ironside
7. “What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets.” — Erma Bombeck
8. “Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.” — Kevin James
9. “Overeating at Thanksgiving is a case in point.” — Alton Brown
10. “An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.” — Irv Kupcinet
11. “Thanksgiving is America’s national chow-down feast.” — Craig Claiborne
12. “Over the river, and through the wood, to Grandmother’s house we go.” — Lydia Maria Child
13. “Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!” — Lydia Maria Child
14. “November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear.” — Sir Walter Scott
15. “Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for His goodness.” — Robert Caspar Lintner
16. “There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.” — O. Henry
17. “The turkey. The sweet potatoes. The stuffing. The pumpkin pie. Is there anything else we all can agree so vehemently about?” — Nora Ephron
18. “Thanksgiving is the day when you turn to another family member and say, ‘How long has Mom been drinking?’” — Dave Barry

Thanksgiving Words from American Presidents

From Washington’s first proclamation to modern addresses, leaders have called the nation to thanks.

1. “It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” — George Washington
2. “The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.” — Abraham Lincoln
3. “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven.” — Abraham Lincoln
4. “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.” — Abraham Lincoln
5. “Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips.” — Theodore Roosevelt
6. “Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.” — Benjamin Franklin
7. “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” — Benjamin Franklin
8. “We learned about gratitude and humility — that so many people had a hand in our success.” — Michelle Obama
9. “Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home.” — Henry Alford
10. “For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies.” — Folliott Sandford Pierpoint
11. “It is well with my soul.” — Horatio Spafford
12. “To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there.” — Barbara Bush
13. “I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” — Abraham Lincoln

Gratitude: The Heart of Thanksgiving

At the center of the day is a simple practice: noticing the good.

1. “We can always find something to be thankful for, no matter what may be the burden of our wants, or the special subject of our petition.” — Albert Barnes
2. “I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks.” — William Shakespeare
3. “The test of all happiness is gratitude.” — G.K. Chesterton
4. “Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.” — Albert Schweitzer
5. “If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness.” — Jeff Keller
6. “Trade your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.” — Tony Robbins
7. “Be grateful for what you have now, and you will attract more good things.” — Rhonda Byrne
8. “Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone.” — Gertrude Stein
9. “Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.” — Randy Pausch
10. “Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant — a seed — this plants the giant miracle.” — Ann Voskamp
11. “Gratitude goes beyond the ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift.” — Henri Nouwen
12. “Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.
13. “If you want to find happiness, find gratitude.” — Steve Maraboli
14. “The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.” — Robert Holden
15. “Gratitude turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.” — Melody Beattie
16. “i thank You God for most this amazing day.” — e.e. cummings
17. “Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.” — Roy T. Bennett

Harvest Season Reflections

Autumn’s gold reminds us that every season brings something to gather.

1. “We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land.” — Matthias Claudius
2. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus
3. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.” — John Keats
4. “The tints of autumn — a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. “Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.” — William Cullen Bryant
6. “I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.” — Robert Browning
7. “No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” — John Donne
8. “How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.” — John Burroughs
9. “I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. “There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley
11. “Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.” — Emily Brontë
12. “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” — L.M. Montgomery
13. “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it.” — George Eliot
14. “Our rural ancestors, with little blest, patient of labour when the end was rest, indulged the day that housed their annual grain, with feasts, and offerings, and a thankful strain.” — Alexander Pope
15. “Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach
16. “Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” — Jim Bishop
17. “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all.” — Stanley Horowitz
18. “Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.” — Elizabeth Lawrence
19. “I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it.” — Lee Maynard

Family Around the Thanksgiving Table

The feast matters less than the faces around it.

1. “Forever on Thanksgiving the heart will find the pathway home.” — Wilbur D. Nesbit
2. “Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.” — William Shakespeare
3. “I love Thanksgiving because it’s a holiday that is centered around food and family, two things that are of utmost importance to me.” — Marcus Samuelsson
4. “The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts.” — Erma Bombeck
5. “I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” — Jon Stewart
6. “The best way to show my gratitude is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.” — Mother Teresa
7. “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” — Mother Teresa
8. “There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” — Jane Austen
9. “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.” — Dutch hymn
10. “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father.” — Thomas Chisholm
11. “This is my Father’s world.” — Maltbie Davenport Babcock
12. “Where we love is home — home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
13. “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” — Michael J. Fox
14. “The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.” — Charles Kuralt
15. “In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
16. “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” — George Bernard Shaw
17. “Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.” — David Ogden Stiers
18. “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” — Anthony Brandt
19. “The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” — George Santayana
20. “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” — George Burns

Hymns and Prayers of Thanksgiving

Songs and prayers people have lifted in thanks for generations.

1. “Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” — Denis Waitley
2. “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” — Thomas Ken
3. “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” — Johnson Oatman Jr.
4. “Come, thou fount of every blessing.” — Robert Robinson
5. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” — John Newton
6. “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.” — Fanny Crosby
7. “Morning has broken like the first morning.” — Eleanor Farjeon
8. “The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will sense them.” — Annie Dillard
9. “Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices.” — Martin Rinkart
10. “The connections we make in the course of a life — maybe that’s what heaven is.” — Fred Rogers
11. “If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God you’ll be at rest.” — Corrie ten Boom
12. “The groves were God’s first temples.” — William Cullen Bryant
13. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” — Emily Brontë
14. “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” — Aristotle
15. “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” — Cicero

Bible Verses About Thanksgiving

Scripture’s own words of gratitude, from Psalms to the prophets.

1. “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” — Bible (Psalm 100:4)
2. “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” — Bible (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
3. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” — Bible (Psalm 107:1)
4. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” — Bible (James 1:17)
5. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” — Bible (Psalm 103:2)
6. “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.” — Bible (Colossians 3:15)
7. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” — Bible (Genesis 8:22)
8. “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” — Bible (2 Corinthians 9:15)

The Joy of Giving

Thanksgiving turns our eyes outward — to what we can share.

1. “Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day.” — Robert Caspar Lintner
2. “Thou hast given so much to me, give one thing more, a grateful heart.” — George Herbert
3. “When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.” — Tecumseh
4. “You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “So much has been given to me; I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.” — Helen Keller
6. “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” — Maya Angelou
7. “True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.’” — Oprah Winfrey
8. “You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day.” — Sara Ban Breathnach
9. “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” — Khalil Gibran
10. “There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.” — Khalil Gibran
11. “Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.” — Khalil Gibran
12. “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
13. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” — Mahatma Gandhi
14. “No one has ever become poor by giving.” — Anne Frank
15. “When I give, I give myself.” — Walt Whitman
16. “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
17. “All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we’re giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world.” — Fred Rogers
18. “Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving.” — Katherine Davis
19. “The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it — they will see the great miracle.” — Ann Voskamp
20. “The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love.” — Henri Nouwen

Kindness and Service

Small acts, given freely, are the day’s truest feast.

1. “Be thankful for the smallest blessing, and you will deserve to receive greater.” — Thomas à Kempis
2. “Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
3. “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” — John Muir
4. “He who gives when he is asked has waited too long.” — Seneca
5. “Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.
6. “As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” — Audrey Hepburn
7. “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness.” — Audrey Hepburn
8. “The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
9. “The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.” — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
10. “I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that.” — Howie Mandel
11. “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” — Plato
12. “We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.” — Aesop
13. “We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.” — Blaise Pascal
14. “Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.” — Blaise Pascal
15. “Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.” — Roy T. Bennett
16. “A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” — Henry Ward Beecher
17. “He who thanks but with the lips thanks but in part; the full, the true Thanksgiving comes from the heart.” — J.A. Shedd

Thanksgiving Humor to Share

Because no family gathering survives without laughter.

1. “You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.” — Jay Leno
2. “My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.” — Phyllis Diller
3. “Good mashed potato is one of the great luxuries of life.” — Lindsey Bareham
4. “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
5. “Govern a family as you would cook a small fish — very gently.” — Chinese proverb
6. “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” — Harriet van Horne
7. “Everything in food is science. The only variable is cook’s skill.” — Alton Brown
8. “No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past.” — Laurie Colwin
9. “A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.” — James Beard
10. “Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.” — James A. Garfield
11. “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.” — Erma Bombeck
12. “I like football. I find it’s an exciting strategic game. It’s a great way to avoid conversation with your family at Thanksgiving.” — Craig Ferguson
13. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” — John Donne
14. “A party without cake is just a meeting.” — Julia Child
15. “I love Thanksgiving turkey. It’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger
16. “Thanksgiving is when the people who are the most thankful are the ones who didn’t have to cook.” — Melanie White
17. “You know that just before that first Thanksgiving dinner there was one wise, old Native American woman saying, ‘Don’t feed them. If you feed them, they’ll never leave.’” — Dylan Brody
18. “Thanksgiving, when the Indians said, ‘Well, this has been fun, but we haven’t really had a good laugh in a while.’” — David Letterman

Home Is Where Thanks Lives

Home is the place gratitude keeps returning to.

1. “Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children.” — Sam Levenson
2. “Home is where the heart is.” — Pliny the Elder
3. “There’s no place like home.” — L. Frank Baum
4. “Home is where one starts from.” — T.S. Eliot
5. “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” — Maya Angelou
6. “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard
7. “At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable.” — Mark V. Olsen
8. “The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.” — Lee Iacocca
9. “Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.
10. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.” — John Lennon
11. “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” — John Lennon
12. “My family is my strength and my weakness.” — Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
13. “Family faces are magic mirrors.” — Christopher Lasch
14. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller

Short Daily Thanksgiving Reflections

One-line reminders to read with your morning coffee.

1. “Be kinder than necessary.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.
2. “Hunger is the best sauce.” — Miguel de Cervantes
3. “The belly rules the mind.” — Spanish proverb
4. “Happiness is a warm puppy.” — Charles Schulz
5. “Forever is composed of nows.” — Emily Dickinson
6. “Good food ends with good talk.” — Geoffrey Neighor
7. “In nature, nothing exists alone.” — Rachel Carson
8. “United we stand, divided we fall.” — Aesop
9. “Into each life some rain must fall.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
10. “The sun shines not on us but in us.” — John Muir
11. “Do anything, but let it produce joy.” — Walt Whitman
12. “Laughter is brightest where food is best.” — Irish proverb
13. “Music is the universal language of mankind.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
14. “Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid.” — John Wayne
15. “And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” — Oscar Wilde
16. “Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.” — Blaise Pascal
17. “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” — Robert Browning
18. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” — Aristotle

Wisdom for a Thankful Life

Thinkers on contentment, enough, and the examined life.

1. “The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” — William James
2. “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.” — Vietnamese proverb
3. “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” — Persian proverb
4. “The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
5. “There is no better exercise for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” — John Andrew Holmes
6. “Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…’” — C.S. Lewis
7. “Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.” — C.S. Lewis
8. “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” — Roald Dahl
9. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss
10. “The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
11. “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.” — Cecil Frances Alexander
12. “’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free.” — Joseph Brackett
13. “Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you.” — Elisabeth Elliot
14. “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” — Frederick Buechner
15. “Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.” — Madeleine L’Engle
16. “The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
17. “Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
18. “It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
19. “The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand as in what direction you are moving.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
20. “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’” — John Greenleaf Whittier
21. “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” — John Donne
22. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” — Lao Tzu
23. “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” — Wendell Berry
24. “The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.” — Chief Seattle
25. “O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!” — Sir Walter Scott
26. “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” — L.M. Montgomery
27. “It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.” — George Eliot
28. “Families are like fudge — mostly sweet with a few nuts.” — Les Dawson
29. “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you’d like to act.” — William James
30. “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James
31. “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” — Dalai Lama
32. “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.” — Seneca
33. “The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.” — Epicurus

Morning Gratitude to Start Your Day

Begin the day the thankful way.

1. “Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.” — Johnny Carson
2. “Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.” — Alice Morse Earle
3. “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle.” — e.e. cummings
4. “It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.” — Diana Gabaldon
5. “There is a time in the last few days of summer when the ripeness of autumn fills the air.” — Rudolfo Anaya
6. “And the sun took a step back, the leaves lulled themselves to sleep, and autumn was awakened.” — Raquel Franco
7. “Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple.” — J.K. Rowling
8. “For each new morning with its light, for rest and shelter of the night, for health and food, for love and friends, for everything Thy goodness sends.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.” — Buddha
10. “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
11. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” — Corrie ten Boom
12. “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.” — Marie Curie
13. “Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” — Emily Dickinson
14. “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image.” — Thomas Merton
15. “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” — Richard Rohr
16. “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” — Frederick Buechner
17. “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart.” — Dorothy Day
18. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard
19. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” — Aldo Leopold
20. “What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?” — George Eliot

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good thanksgiving quote of the day?

A good thanksgiving quote of the day is short, grateful, and easy to share — for example, Melody Beattie’s line that gratitude makes sense of our past and brings peace for today. Pick one each morning and read it aloud at breakfast.

How can I use these quotes through November?

Read one each morning, text one to family, print a few as place cards for the table, or post one daily until Thanksgiving Day on November 26, 2026.

What is the most famous Thanksgiving quote?

Two stand above the rest: George Washington’s 1789 proclamation calling all nations to gratefully acknowledge providence, and Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation setting aside the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.

When is Thanksgiving in 2026?

Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26 — the fourth Thursday of November, as Abraham Lincoln proclaimed in 1863.

More Thanksgiving Quotes to Explore

• 250 classic Thanksgiving quotes for the holiday table
• a gratitude quote of the day for your daily practice
• the Bible quote of the day for morning reflection
• 250 Bible quotes about faith and thanks
• a happy quote of the day to lift your mood
• a funny quote of the day to share a laugh
• a positive quote of the day for encouragement
• a love quote of the day for the people you cherish
• a hope quote of the day for hard seasons
• a friendship quote of the day for old friends
• fall quotes for the autumn season
• family quotes for togetherness