Gratitude - the fairest blossom

Since my first posts on gratitude, I have noticed many visits to the site by people searching for quotes or prayers about gratitude. This is no doubt linked to the Thanksgiving holiday, which was a wholly fortuitous coincidence with regard to my posts since I do not have any great notion of the public holidays or even, I am ashamed to say, of the religious holidays. My thoughts started turning to gratitude for a very different reason (read my post Gratitude – the forgotten virtue).
Be that as it may, I will perhaps make an exception for Thanksgiving in the future as a result of these posts on gratitude and my growing awareness of the essentiality of gratitude in the heart of him that would be happy. It seems to me now a very noble and worthy reason for a holiday. And another example of the wisdom of the old ways.
I wish all our American cousins a very happy Thanksgiving.

Gratitude is the memory of the heart. Jean-Baptiste Massieu

Gratitude is the moral memory of mankind. Georg Simmel

Gratitude is the least of the virtues, but ingratitude is the worst of vices. Thomas Fuller

Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies. Charles E. Jefferson

Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy. Jacques Maritain

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation. You do not find it among gross people. Samuel Johnson

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. Nietzsche

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. John E. Southard

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. G.K.Chesterton

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. G.K.Chesterton

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

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. Henry Ward Beecher