70 Short Thankful Quotes to Inspire a Grateful Heart

Being grateful sounds simple until you actually sit down to put it into words.

These thankful quotes cover a wide range of feelings, from noticing small everyday blessings to appreciating the people who show up for you.

Some are short enough to save as a caption. Others are the kind you write down somewhere and come back to later.

Pick what fits and keep it close.

Short Thankful Quotes

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.” — Henry Ward Beecher

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

“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

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.” — Melody Beattie

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” — William Arthur Ward

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson

“Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.” — Gertrude Stein

“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.” — William Faulkner

“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.” — Seneca

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” — Oprah Winfrey

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” — Eckhart Tolle

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” — Jean Baptiste Massieu

“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” — Cynthia Ozick

“To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go.” — Victor Hugo

“Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things.” — Maya Angelou

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” — Meister Eckhart

“Rest and be thankful.” — William Wordsworth

“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” — Aesop

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first or the last time, then your time on earth will be filled with glory.” — Betty Smith

“In every class of society, gratitude is the rarest of all human virtues.” — Wilkie Collins

“God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.” — Izaak Walton

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

“People who live the most fulfilling lives are the ones who are always rejoicing at what they have.” — Richard Carlson

“The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for.” — Zig Ziglar

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.” — Henry Clay

“I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.” — L.M. Montgomery

“Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.” — Margaret Cousins

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” — Voltaire

“The way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.” — Charles Schwab

“If we meet someone who owes us thanks, we right away remember that. But how often do we meet someone to whom we owe thanks without remembering that?” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“He who receives a good turn should never forget it; he who does one should never remember it.” — Pierre Charron

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” — Ambrose of Milan

“O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!” — William Shakespeare

“Reflect upon your blessings, of which every man has plenty, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” — Charles Dickens

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.” — Henri Frederic Amiel

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” — Epictetus

“Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.” — Henry Van Dyke

“There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy.” — Ralph H. Blum

“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” — Dalai Lama

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” — Karl Barth

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

“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.” — William James

“We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.” — Neal A. Maxwell

“When life is sweet, be thankful and rejoice; but when bitter, be strong and persevere.” — Matshona Dhliwayo

“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr

“The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.” — William Penn

“If you want to find happiness, find gratitude.” — Steve Maraboli

Thankful Quotes for Friends

“I’m so thankful for friendship. It beautifies life so much.” — L.M. Montgomery

“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.” — Hubert H. Humphrey

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust

“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” — Thomas Aquinas

“Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.” — Thomas Jefferson

“We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” — Albert Schweitzer

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'” — C.S. Lewis

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” — Jane Austen

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” — Mark Twain

“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.” — Aristotle

“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.” — William Shakespeare

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” — Elbert Hubbard

“Some people go to priests, others to poetry, I to my friends.” — Virginia Woolf

“To have friends who will always take you to higher ground is an incalculable blessing.” — John Bytheway

“The light of friendship is seen plainest when all around is dark.” — Grace Noll Crowell

“If the first law of friendship is that it has to be cultivated, the second law is to be indulgent when the first has been neglected.” — Voltaire

“I’m just thankful for the people that never left me and equally thankful for those who did.” — Nitya Prakash

“When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.” — Maria Shriver

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” — A.A. Milne