Today is Friendship Day.

It’s a good time to take a pause and to appreciate those special people in your life that make it all so much more positive, fun and meaningful.

And to help you with that I want to share 125 of the most inspirational, hilarious, cute and deep quotes for Friendship Day.

Use one or a couple of them in a card, a text message, a group chat or for social media like Instagram to share the love and express your gratitude for how much your best friend and friends mean to you.

Inspirational Best Friend Quotes for Friendship Day

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”
– Henry Ford

“A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself.”
– Heidi Wills

“Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.”
– Socrates

“Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s greatest gifts. It involves many things, but above all the power of going out of one’s self and appreciating what is noble and loving in another.”
– Thomas Hughes

“A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.”
– Leo Buscaglia

“Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.”
– Thomas J. Watson

“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.”
– Amy Poehler

“Anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.”
– Misty Copeland

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”
– Henri Nouwen

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
– Albert Schweitzer

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
– Maya Angelou

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
– Dale Carnegie

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

“Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.”
– Francesco Guicciardini

“The best time to make friends is before you need them.”
– Ethel Barrymore

“Getting to know new people and gaining new friends is one of life’s greatest pleasures. So conquer your fears and get out there.”
– Tony Clark

“Each new friendship can make you a new person, because it opens up new doors inside of you.”
– Kate DiCamillo

“A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.”
– Maya Angelou

“Don’t be afraid of new beginnings. Don’t shy away from new people, new energy, new surroundings. Embrace new chances at happiness.”
– Billy Chapata

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”
– Audrey Hepburn

“If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”
– Zig Ziglar

“The kindest way of helping yourself is to find a friend.”
– Ann Kaiser Stearns

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.”
– Mark Twain

“If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.”
– Maxwell Maltz

Happy Friendship Day Quotes Filled With Love and Gratitude

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

“A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.”
– Elbert Hubbard

“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

“Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.”
– Anna Taylor

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.”
– Nicole Richie

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

“Friends are the siblings God never gave us.”
– Mencius

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
– Tennessee Williams

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”
– Helen Keller

“The love that comes from friendship is the underlying facet of a happy life.”
– Chelsea Handler

“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
– Walter Winchell

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart.”
– Helen Keller

“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.”
– Elisabeth Foley

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”
– Elie Wiesel

“I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.”
– Charles R. Swindoll

“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
– Khalil Gibran

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
– Khalil Gibran

“A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.”
– Arnold H. Glasgow

“Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.”
– Ally Condie

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

“A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.”
– Donna Roberts

Funny Friendship Quotes to Share the Laughs on This Day

“A good friend will help you move. But a best friend will help you move a dead body.”
– Jim Hayes

“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re OK, then it’s you.”
– Rita Mae Brown

“My friends and I are crazy. That’s the only thing that keeps us sane.”
– Matt Schucker

“The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.”
– Jay McInerney

“Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.”
– Mark Twain

“A good friend will always stab you in the front.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Most of us don’t need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with.”
– Robert Brault

“‘Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.”
– Charles Lamb

“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.”
– Linda Grayson

“Friends make you smile – best friends make you giggle ’til you pee your pants.”
– Terri Guillemets

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”
– Bernard Meltzer

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You can always tell a real friend: When you’ve made a fool of yourself, he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.”
– Laurence J. Peter

“The imaginary friends I had as a kid dropped me because their friends thought I didn’t exist.”
– Aaron Machado

“Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.”
– Samuel Butler

“One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends is that three out of four murders are committed by people who know the victim.”
– George Carlin

“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”
– Sylvia Plath

“Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass, and it goes to pieces.”
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“One sure way to lose another woman’s friendship is to try to improve her flower arrangements.”
– Marcelene Cox

“It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.”
– Mark Twain

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
– Jane Austen

“You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.”
– Elizabeth Taylor

“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.”
– Mark Twain

“When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, ‘Damn, that was fun.’”
– Groucho Marx

Cute, Deep and Meaningful Friendship Quotes

“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

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.”
– Henri Nouwen

“There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.”
– Jim Henson

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart… I’ll always be with you.”
– Winnie the Pooh

“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves.”
– Vincent Van Gogh

“That’s when I realized what a true friend was. Someone who would always love you – the imperfect you, the confused you, the wrong you – because that is what people are supposed to do.”
– R. J. L.

“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.”
– David Tyson

“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”
– Muhammad Ali

“Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare – and precious as a pearl.”
– Tahar Ben Jelloun

“A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future and accepts you just the way you are.”
– Unknown

“Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.”
– Washington Irving

“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
– William Shakespeare

“The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another’s little lapses.”
– David Storey

“True friends are always together in spirit.”
– L.M. Montgomery

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself – and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is.”
– Jim Morrison

“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.”
– John O’Donohue

“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
– Toni Morrison

“But 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 cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”
– Ray Bradbury

“Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.”
– John Evelyn

“Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
– Albert Camus

“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

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever.”
– Alfred Tennyson

“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.”
– Oscar Wilde

Short Friendship Day Quotes (Great for Your Instagram)

“The best mirror is an old friend.”
– George Herbert

“Time doesn’t take away from friendship, nor does separation.”
– Tennessee Williams

“Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.”
– Jean de La Fontaine

“Friends are the family you choose.”
– Jess C. Scott

“It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.”
– Marlene Dietrich

“Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there.”
– Unknown

“A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.”
– Irish Proverb

“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.”
– Ed Cunningham

“Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.”
– Anna Deavere Smith

“To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.”
– Dr. Seuss

“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.”
– Unknown

“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”
– Woodrow T. Wilson

“No friendship is an accident.”
– O. Henry

“A sweet friendship refreshes the soul.”
– Proverbs 27:9

“Friendship’s the wine of life.”
– Edward Young

“Friends are relatives you make for yourself.”
– Eustache Deschamps

“Best friend isn’t a person; it’s a tier.”
– Mindy Kaling

“Friends should be like books, few, but hand-selected.”
– C.J. Langenhoven

“Awards become corroded. Friends gather no dust.”
– Jesse Owens

“A faithful friend loves to the end.”
– Unknown

“Some people go to priests. Others to poetry. I to my friends.”
– Virginia Woolf

“Life was meant for good friends and great adventures.”
– Unknown

“In the cookie of life, friends are chocolate chips.”
– Salman Rushdie

“Distance means so little when someone means so much.”
– Tom McNeal

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”
– G. Randolph

Want more inspiration and timeless thoughts on friendship? Then have a look at these best friend quotes, the short friendship quotes in this post, the many meaningful friendship quotes here and this one with plenty of funny friendship quotes.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
– Annie Dillard

Are you willing to spend a little time every day like most people won’t, so you can spend the better part of your life like most people can’t?

Think about that question for a moment. Let it sink in. You ultimately become what you repeatedly do. The acquisition of knowledge doesn’t mean you’re growing — growing happens only when what you know changes how you live on a daily basis (most people miss the second part).

And isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different? That’s the power of daily habits.

Now it’s time think about your habits — the little things you do every day.

Because these little things define you.

All the results in your life come from these little things.

Regardless of your unique life circumstances, or how you define success, you don’t suddenly become successful. You become successful over time based on your habits.

Failure occurs in the same way. All your little daily failures (that you don’t learn and grow from) come together and cause you to fail…

• You keep failing to check the books.
• You keep failing to make the calls.
• You keep failing to listen to your customers.
• You keep failing to innovate.
• You keep failing to do the little things that need to be done.

Then one day you wake up and your business has failed. It was all the little things you did or didn’t do on a daily basis — your habits — not just one inexplicable, catastrophic event.

Think about how this relates to your life.

Your life is your “business!”

And your habits make or break you, one day at a time.

Even the seemingly insignificant daily habits you engage in can produce ripples of consequence, for better or worse.

So how have you been managing your habits, and thus your life?

Are the little things you’re doing every day working for you or against you? If you think the answer might be the latter, you will find value in the essential daily habits listed below. Each of them gradually strengthens common weak points we’ve seen plaguing hundreds of our course students, coaching clients, and live event attendees over the past 15 years (these weak points are little negative patterns of behavior that most of us struggle with at some point).

And remember, this article is about making small, sustainable changes in your routine behavior. That means practicing each one of these habits gradually — one at a time, one day at a time, and then letting them build on one another over time. Go from zero to six over the course of six months or so, not all at once…

1. Wash your dishes, mindfully.

Yes, I literally mean washing your dishes. It’s just one small step forward: When you eat your oatmeal, wash your bowl and spoon. When you finish drinking your morning coffee, rinse the coffee pot and your mug. Don’t leave any dirty dishes in the sink or on the counter for later. Wash them immediately.

Form this small habit one dish at a time, one day at a time. Once you do this consistently for a couple weeks, you can start making sure the sink has been wiped clean too. Then the counter. Then put your clothes where they belong when you take them off. Then start doing a few sit-ups every morning. Eat a few vegetables for dinner. And so forth.

Do one of these at a time, and you’ll start to build a healthy habit of practicing self-discipline, and finally know yourself to be capable of doing the little things that must be done, and finishing what you start.

But again, to start, just wash your dishes. Mindfully, with a smile.

2. Consciously focus on the positive.

As described in the bestselling book “The Happiness Advantage”, recent scientific studies have shown that doctors who are put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis consistently experience significant boosts to their intellectual abilities than doctors in a neutral state, which allows them to make accurate diagnoses almost 20% faster. The same studies then shifted to other vocations and found that optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by over 50%. Students primed to feel happy before taking math tests substantially outperform their neutral peers. So it turns out that our minds are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative, or even neutral, but when they are generally positive.

Of course, that’s not to say that successful people never get upset, but your effectiveness in all walks of life will fare better if you’re able to mindfully accept and let go of negative emotions, rather than dwelling on them. Think a little less about managing your problems and a little more about managing your mindset. Keep it generally positive.

3. Use visual reminders to stay on track.

You want to get in shape, but when you’re tired it’s easy to rationalize that you’ll start exercising and eating healthier tomorrow. You want to build a more profitable business, but when you’re caught up in the daily grind it’s easy to just do what’s familiar instead of what’s required for growth. You want to nurture your closest relationships, but when you’re busy it’s easy to rationalize that you really need to work on that client proposal instead. In other words, few good things come easy, and when the going gets tough we often take the easy way out — even though the easy way takes us the wrong way.

To combat this, many successful people use visual reminders that pull them back from the brink of their weak impulses. A friend of ours who has paid off over $100K of debt in the past five years has a copy of her credit card balance taped to her work computer’s monitor; it serves as a daily reminder of both the progress she has made and debt she still wants to pay off. Another friend keeps a photo of herself when she was 90 pounds heavier on her refrigerator as a reminder of the unhealthy lifestyle she never wants to go back to. And another fills his office bulletin board with family photos, both because he loves looking at them and because, when work gets really tough, these photos remind him of the people he is ultimately working for.

Think of moments when you are most likely to give in to impulses that take you farther away from your ultimate goals. Then use visual reminders of those goals to quietly interrupt the impulses, and keep you on track.

4. Practice journaling.

If you want to get somewhere in life, you need a map, and your journal is that map. You can write down what you did today, what you tried to accomplish, where you made mistakes, and so much more. It’s a place to reflect. It’s a place to capture important thoughts. It’s a place to sort out where you’ve been and where you intend to go. And it’s one of the most underused, yet incredibly effective tools available to the masses.

Just this morning, I spent 15 minutes journaling about some recent events in my life that I’m grateful for, and some that are still troubling me. As I was wrapping up, the idea for the blog post you’re reading now came to me, which was a pleasant surprise since I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to share with you today.

I also unearthed some incredibly healthy insights regarding an important relationship that I had been neglecting, which motivated me to immediately send out a text message to someone I care about who I’ve been meaning to reconnect with. We now have a brunch date scheduled for next Sunday.

So as you can infer, your time spent focusing inward and journaling doesn’t just help you — your mind is powerful and your thoughts create ripples in the world around you. When you bring clarity into your life, you bring the best of yourself into everything you do — you tend to treat yourself and others better, communicate more constructively, do things for the right reasons, and ultimately improve the world you’re living in. This is why journaling for a short time every day can actually make a significant real-world difference in your life. (Note: If you’re interested in starting a journaling practice, or simply expanding on your current practice, check out “The Good Morning Journal”.)

5. Observe or study the work of mentors.

Regardless of what you’re trying to achieve, you can’t do it completely alone. It can be hard to learn actionable skills from books, and sometimes the internet makes it difficult to separate truth from fiction. You need someone who has been where you want to go, and you need them to show you the way — you need a mentor.

Sure, 10,000 hours of diligent practice can make you an expert at something, but what makes you dedicate 10,000 hours to something in the first place? The answer is having a great mentor or two. If you study the lives of enough successful people, it becomes obvious that most world-class performers in all fields — athletes, musicians, entrepreneurs, etc. — had incredible mentors, coaches or role models who made the activity of practice worthwhile and rewarding.

And sometimes just observing a mentor works wonders too. When we observe someone we want to learn from and we have a crystal clear idea of what we want to create for ourselves, it unlocks a tremendous amount of motivation. Human beings are socially inclined, and when we get the idea that we want to join some elite circle up above us, that is what really motivates us to achieve greatness. “Look, they did it. I can do it too!” It may sound overly simplistic, but spending time studying people who are great can be one of the most powerful things you can do for your success.

6. Give thanks before bed.

Overlooking everything that’s wonderful is a tragedy, and a very debilitating one. When you get lost in worried thoughts about a life situation you think you “should” have, you end up missing the beauty of everything you do have. And you will never be happy if you aren’t consciously thankful for the good things in your life.

Here’s a super simple, five-minute daily gratitude exercise that has worked wonders for hundreds of our students and coaching clients over the past 16 years:

Every evening before you go to bed, write down three things that went well during the day and their causes. Simply provide a short, causal explanation for each good thing.

That’s it. We spend tens of thousands of dollars on expensive electronics, big homes, fancy cars, and lavish vacations hoping for a boost of happiness. This is a free alternative, and it works.

In a study of this gratitude exercise’s effectiveness by the famed psychologist Martin Seligman, participants were asked to follow those exact instructions for just one week. After one week the participants were measurably 2% happier than before, but in follow-up tests their happiness kept on increasing, from 5% at one month, to 9% at six months. Even more interestingly, the participants were only required to keep this gratitude journal for one week, but the majority of them continued journaling on their own because they enjoyed it.

I tried it for myself nearly two decades ago — I set a goal of doing it for just one week, and I’m still doing it today. So I can assure you it’s effective.

A journey of renewing trust in yourself.

Renewing trust in yourself is one of the most significant hidden benefits of practicing the aforementioned daily habits. In fact, what Angel and I lacked before we learned to implement these kinds of daily habits was the trust that we were actually capable of achieving positive results in our lives. We went through a very difficult time together when we were in our twenties — both of us were grieving significant losses in our lives, and we repeatedly failed to get back on our feet. As the weeks rolled into months, we had grown so discouraged in ourselves that we started subconsciously choosing procrastination over future attempts to make progress on the promises we made to ourselves — to heal and move forward.

In essence, we lost trust in both our abilities and ourselves. It’s kind of like another person constantly lying to you — eventually you stop trusting them. The same holds true with the promises you make to yourself that always end in disappointment. Eventually you stop trusting yourself.

And the solution in most cases is the same too: you have to renew your trust gradually, with tiny promises, tiny steps (your daily habits), and tiny victories. Of course this process takes time, but it happens relatively quick if you stick to it. And it’s arguably one of the most important, life-changing things you can do for yourself.

Now it’s your turn…

Yes, it’s your turn to take the next step with one of the aforementioned daily habits. But before you go, please leave Angel and me a comment below and let us know what you think of this essay and its ideas. Your feedback is important to us.

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign-up for our free newsletter to receive new articles like this in your inbox each week.

Thanksgiving will soon be here and although many mainly focus on family there are also friends that are very important.

Plenty of people celebrate Friendsgiving these days to show appreciation and love for the people who choose to be in our lives, the ones that are there on tough days to listen and make us laugh and sometimes maybe understand us better than family would.

So in today’s post I want to share 85 of the most positive, meaningful and funny Thanksgiving quotes for friends.

Use them to express your gratitude, to share a couple of laughs together and to have a happy and fun holiday.

Thanksgiving Quotes for Friends to Express Your Gratitude

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

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”
– John F. Kennedy

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

“The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.”
– Jay McInerney

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
– Maya Angelou

“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.”
– Dalai Lama

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

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
– William Blake

“I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.”
– Will Arnett

“No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”
– Alfred North Whitehead

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

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”
– Oscar Wilde

“A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.”
– Frank Crane

“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

“The most thankful person is the most fully human.”
– John Henry Jowett

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

Funny Thanksgiving Quotes for Friends

“What’s not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!”
– Joey Tribbiani (from the Tv-show Friends)

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
– W.C. Fields

“Real friendship is when your friend comes over to your house on Thanksgiving and doesn’t judge you for eating pie straight from the tin.”
– Jim Harper

“I love spending Thanksgiving surrounded by all these great friends I met in the Best Buy parking lot.”
– John Lyon

“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
– Erma Bombeck

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”
– Kevin James

“You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.”
– Jay Leno

“What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets.”
– Erma Bombeck

“I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that.”
– Howie Mandel

“An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.”
– Irv Kupcinet

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
– Jim Davis

“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

“It took me three weeks to stuff the turkey. I stuffed it through the beak.”
– Phyllis Diller

“I suppose I will die never knowing what pumpkin pie tastes like when you have room for it.”
– Robert Brault

“The meal isn’t over when I’m full. The meal is over when I hate myself.”
– Louis C.K.

“Every Thanksgiving I bring the champagne, because in my family we all know what our strengths are.”
– Gloria Fallon

“My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.”
– Phyllis Diller

“Cooking tip: Wrap turkey leftovers in aluminum foil and throw them out.”
– Nicole Hollander

“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”
– Jerry Seinfeld

“I can’t cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast.”
– Charlie Brown

“It’s not too much food. This is what we’ve been training for our whole lives. This is our destiny, this is our finest hour.”
– Lorelai Gilmore

Positive and Cute Thanksgiving Quotes for Friends

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
– Walter Winchell

“True friendship resists time, distance and silence.”
– Isabel Allende

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

“What if today, we were just grateful for everything?”
– Charlie Brown

“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.”
– Hausa Proverb

“Be thankful for what you have. Your life is someone else’s fairy tale.”
– Wale Ayeni

“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.”
– Amy Poehler

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.”
– Kristin Armstrong

“The struggle ends when gratitude begins.”
– Neale Donald Walsch

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
– Anais Nin

“The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.”
– James E. Faust

“Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe.”
– Deepak Chopra

“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.”
– Elisabeth Foley

“A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness.”
– James E. Faust

“Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”
– Rumi

“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Good times and crazy friends make the best memories.”
– Unknown

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

“A best friend is someone who loves you when you forget to love yourself.”
– Unknown

“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness.”
– Amy Collette

“Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say.”
– Alice Walker

“Friendship is the wine of life.”
– Edward Young

Short Thanksgiving Quotes for Friends

“Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness and gratitude.”
– Nigel Hamilton

“No gesture is too small when done with gratitude.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.”
– Helen Keller

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

“When I count my blessings, I count you twice.”
– Unknown

“Friends are the siblings God never gave us.”
– Mencius

“Reflect upon your present blessings.”
– Charles Dickens

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”
– Paulo Coelho

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.”
– Native American Proverb

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.”
– Oprah Winfrey

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

“Thanksgiving just gets me all warm and tingly and all kinds of wonderful inside.”
– Willard Scott

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.”
– Melody Beattie

“Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day.”
– Robert Caspar Lintner

“Life is meant for good friends and great adventures.”
– Unknown

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

“And though I ebb in worth, I’ll flow in thanks.”
– John Taylor

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Aesop

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

“Every new friend is a new adventure… the start of more memories.”
– Patrick Lindsay

“The more you thank life, the more life gives you to be thankful for.”
– Zig Ziglar

“Forever on Thanksgiving the heart will find the pathway home.”
– Wilbur D. Nesbit

Want more uplifting and timeless thoughts for your holiday? Then check out these Thanksgiving quotes for family, this one filled with Thanksgiving quotes for gratitude at work and also this post with short Thanksgiving quotes.

You have come a long way, and you’re still learning and growing. Be thankful for the lessons. Take them and make the best of things today.

For my 18th birthday, many moons ago, my grandfather on my mom’s side gave me four lightly-used flannel shirts that he no longer needed. The shirts were barely worn and in great shape; my grandfather said he thought they would look great on me. Unfortunately, I thought they were odd gifts at the time and I wasn’t thankful. I looked at him skeptically, gave him a crooked half-smile, and moved on to the other gifts sitting in front of me. My grandfather died two days later from a sudden heart attack. The flannel shirts were the last gifts he ever gave me, and that crooked half-smile was the last time I directly acknowledged him. Today, I still regret the little thing I didn’t say when I had the chance: “Thank you Grandpa. I appreciate you.”

That was a huge wake-up call for me — one that has served me well for over two decades now.

And here are eight wake-up calls for all of us to reflect on today — some important lessons worth learning and living by, before it’s too late:

1. We might not have tomorrow to say, “I love you.”

About 15 years ago a coworker of mine died in a car accident on the way to work. During his funeral several people from the office were in tears, saying kind things like: “I loved him. We all loved him so much. He was such a wonderful person.” I started crying too, and I wondered if these people had told him that they loved him while he was alive, or whether it was only with death that this powerful word, love, had been used without question or hesitation.

I vowed to myself then and there that I would never again hesitate to speak up to the people I love and remind them of how much I appreciate them. They deserve to know they give meaning to my life. They deserve to know I think the world of them.

Bottom line: If you love someone today, tell them. If you appreciate someone today, tell them. There might not be a tomorrow. Today is the day to express your love and admiration. (Note: Angel and I discuss this in detail in the Relationships chapter of “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently”.)

2. Our judgments of others are often inaccurate.

You will never know exactly what another person is going through or what their whole story is. When you believe you do, realize that your assumptions about their life are in direct relation to your own limited perspective.

Many people you believe to be successful are extremely unhappy. Many people you think have it easy have worked their tail off to achieve their status. Many people who appear to be wealthy are in debt because of their extravagant tastes for material possessions. Many people who appear to be too old and uncool were once every bit as young, hip, and inexperienced as you are right now.

3. Not trying is why most people fail in the long run.

It’s not the mistakes and failures you have to worry about the most, it’s the opportunities you miss when you don’t even try that hurt the worst. Trying — truly trying — always leads to some level of success, regardless of the outcome. Even mistakes and failures teach you what not to do next time. Every outcome, good or bad, is a lesson that makes you stronger and wiser over time.

So keep reminding yourself that in the end there’s only one thing that makes a goal or dream impossible to achieve: the failure to try. Because the results you achieve in life are not based on what you plan to do or what you say you’ll do. Your results come from what you actually try and do consistently!

Yes, your life will get better when YOU get better. Start investing in yourself mentally and physically. Make it a priority to learn and grow a little bit every day by building positive daily habits and sticking to them. The stronger you grow and become, the better your life will feel in the long run.

4. Patience doesn’t mean waiting and doing nothing.

Patience involves productive activity. It means doing your very best with the resources available to you, while understanding that the results you seek are worth the required time and effort, and not available elsewhere for any less time and effort.

Patience is the realization that the quality of your life in the long run is much more significant than the quantity of things you fill it with today. Patience is your willingness to accept and appreciate what you have right now, while you gradually work hard for the dreams and goals that matter most to you.

5. Most of us don’t need to buy anything more to be happy.

Intuitively, you already know that the best stuff in life isn’t stuff at all, and that relationships, experiences, and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life. Yet you live in a consumer driven society where your mind is incessantly subjected to clever advertising ploys that drive you, against your better judgment, to buy material goods you don’t need or even want.

And at a certain point, the excessive material objects you buy end up hurting the emotional needs advertisers would like you to believe they are meant to support. So next time you’re getting ready to make an impulsive purchase, ask yourself if this thing is really better than the things you already have. Or have you been momentarily tricked into believing that you’re dissatisfied with what you already have? (Read “Soulful Simplicity”.)

6. None of us are perfect.

All humans are imperfect. We make mistakes, we lose our tempers, and we get caught off guard. We stumble, we slip, and we spin out of control sometimes. Yes, sometimes the confident lose confidence, the patient misplace their patience, the generous act selfish, and the knowledgeable second guess what they know.

But that’s honestly the worst of it — we all have our moments. Most of the time we are remarkable! So stand beside the people you love through their trying times of imperfection, and offer yourself the same courtesy; if you aren’t willing to, you don’t deserve to be around for the remarkable moments either.

7. All the little things make a big difference in the end.

Life isn’t about a single moment of great triumph and attainment. It’s about the trials and errors that get you there — the blood, sweat, and tears — the small, inconsequential things you do every day. It all matters in the end — every step, every regret, every decision, and every little affliction.

Yes, the seemingly useless happenings add up to something. The minimum wage job you had in high school. The evenings you spent laughing and socializing with coworkers you never see anymore. The hours you spent writing down your thoughts on social media posts no one ever read. Contemplations about elaborate future plans that never came to be. All those lonely nights spent reading novels and news columns and Twitter threads and fashion tips and questioning your own principles on life and sex and religion and whether or not you’re good enough just the way you are…

All of this has strengthened you! All of this has led you to every success you’ve ever had. All of this has made you who you are today.

Truth be told, you’ve been broken down dozens of times and put yourself back together again. Think about how remarkable that is, and how far you have come. You’re not the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even yesterday. You’re always growing… stronger!

8. Excuses are mostly just lies.

Just because someone else can, doesn’t mean you can, right? Because you’re not good enough, or you’ve already missed your chance, or it’s just not in the cards for you. You look for reasons they can do it but you can’t…

• “Maybe he’s an internet entrepreneur and freelance writer because he has no kids.”
• “Maybe she’s way fitter than I am because she doesn’t have all the work and family obligations I have, or has a more supportive spouse, or doesn’t have bad knees.”

OK fine, it’s easy to find excuses: but look at all the other people who also have considerable obstacles and have done it anyway. Angel and I have a family, and have coped with significant loss in our lives, and still managed to make meaningful progress in our lives. And just as we’ve turned things around for ourselves, we know hundreds of other people who’ve done the same. Through 15 years of work with our coaching clients and live event attendees, we’ve witnessed people reinventing themselves at all ages — 48-year olds starting healthy families, 57-year-olds graduating from college for the first time, 71-year-olds starting successful businesses, and so forth. And stories abound of people with disabilities or illnesses who overcame their obstacles to achieve incredible outcomes.

No one else can succeed for you on your behalf. The life you live is the life you build for yourself. There are so many possibilities to choose from, and so many opportunities for you to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. NOW is the moment to actually step forward!

It’s your turn…

Starting now, I sincerely hope you will have an inspired rest of your day today, that you will dream boldly and dangerously, that you will make some progress that didn’t exist before you took action, that you will love and be loved in return, and that you will find the strength to accept and grow from the troubles you can’t change. And, most importantly (because Angel and I think there should be more kindness and wisdom in this world), that you will, when you must, be wise with your decisions, and that you will always be extra kind to yourself and others.

And before you go, please leave Angel and me a comment below and let us know what you think of this post. Your feedback is important to us. 

(Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign-up for our free newsletter to receive new articles like this in your inbox each week.)

It’s Thanksgiving (or it’s coming soon, depending on when you’re reading this).

A time of the year for families to come together. To laugh, share memories and food and let gratitude and love shine in the darkness of November.

So in today’s post I’d like to share 101 of the most meaningful, funny and loving Thanksgiving quotes for family.

I hope you’ll find something here to help you truly express how you feel at the dinner table, in a text or on a card or maybe via social media posts on Instagram.

Happy Thanksgiving Quotes for Family to Help You Express Your Love

“Having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family. Having both is a blessing.”
– Donna Hedges

“The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.”
– C.S. Lewis

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”
– Michael J. Fox

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”
– Mother Teresa

“Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.”
– Irina Shayk

“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

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.”
– Anthony Brandt

“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
– from the movie Lilo & Stitch

“That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.”
– Deb Caletti

“I sustain myself with the love of family.”
– Maya Angelou

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues are created, strengthened and maintained.”
– Winston Churchill

“This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.”
– Mitch Albom

“It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.”
– Peter Buffett

“What greater blessing to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering.”
– Robert Brault

“In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another’s good, and bearing one another’s burdens.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“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

“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
– Desmond Tutu

“I love Thanksgiving because it’s a holiday centered around food and family, two things that are of utmost importance to me.”
– Marcus Samuelsson

“Home is people. Not a place.”
– Robin Hobb

Short Thanksgiving Quotes and Sayings for Family

“Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness and gratitude.”
– Nigel Hamilton

“The most important thing in the world is family and love.”
– John Wooden

“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness.”
– Amy Collette

“The most thankful person is the most fully human.”
– John Henry Jowett

“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”
– Lionel Hampton

“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.”
– Douglas Wood

“Gratitude is the best attitude.”
– Unknown

“A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness.”
– James E. Faust

“Reflect upon your present blessings.”
– Charles Dickens

“A moment of gratitude makes a difference in your attitude.”
– Bruce Wilkinson

“Thankfulness creates gratitude which generates contentment that causes peace.”
– Todd Stocker

“No gesture is too small when done with gratitude.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.”
– Native American Proverb

“Life is better when you’re thankful.”
– Joyce Meyer

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

“Kindness is always fashionable.”
– Amelia Barr

“Gratitude changes everything.”
– Marian Wright Edelman

“Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say.”
– Alice Walker

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

“The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.”
– James E. Faust

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”
– John F. Kennedy

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

Funny Thanksgiving Quotes for Family to Lighten the Mood

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I like football. I find its an exciting strategic game. It’s a great way to avoid conversation with your family at Thanksgiving.”
– Craig Ferguson

“It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a little emotional scarring.”
– Timothy Burke

“Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America’s obesity statistics.”
– Stephen Colbert

“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

“The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.”
– Jay McInerney

“What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?”
– Erma Bombeck

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”
– Kevin James

“You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.”
– Jay Leno

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

“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”
– Jerry Seinfeld

“Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before.”
– Rita Rudner

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
– Erma Bombeck

“The Thanksgiving tradition is, we overeat. ‘Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?’ ‘But we do that every day!’ ‘Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?’”
– Jim Gaffigan

“Every Thanksgiving I bring the champagne, because in my family we all know what our strengths are.”
– Gloria Fallon

“I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car.”
– Stephen Colbert

“Keep your friends close, but your relatives at a distance during Thanksgiving dinner.”
– David Letterman

“Family gathering: A time when relatives you haven’t seen all year magically appear just in time to critique your life choices.”
– Jen Lancaster

“Some family trees bear an enormous crop of nuts.”
– Wayne Huizenga

“So what do we do? We do what all families do. Grin, bear it, and pass the mashed potatoes.”
– Heather Brewer

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”
– Erma Bombeck

Meaningful Thanksgiving Quotes for Your Parents

“My mother: She is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”
– Jodi Picoult

“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

“My mother is my root, my foundation. She planted the seed that I base my life on, and that is the belief that the ability to achieve starts in your mind.”
– Michael Jordan

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.”
– Jim Valvano

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
– Melody Beattie

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.”
– Maya Angelou

“My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”
– Clarence Budington Kelland

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

“My father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future.”
– Liza Minnelli

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

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

“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

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

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

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

“Great fathers don’t find fault. Great fathers find solutions.”
– Reed Markham

“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

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
– William Blake

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
– Meister Eckhart

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.”
– Dalai Lama

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

Happy Thanksgiving Quotes for Your Kids

“What if today, we were just grateful for everything?”
– Charlie Brown

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

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

“There is always something to be thankful for.”
– Charles Dickens

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton

“I can’t cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast.”
– Charlie Brown

“Thanksgiving just gets me all warm and tingly and all kinds of wonderful inside.”
– Willard Scott

“When one has a grateful heart, life is so beautiful.”
– Roy Bennett

“Find gratitude in the little things and your well of gratitude will never run dry.”
– Antonia Montoya

“It’s funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”
– Germany Kent

“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.”
– Hausa Proverb

“Be thankful for what you have. Your life is someone else’s fairy tale.”
– Wale Ayeni

“Thanksgiving creates abundance.”
– Ann Voskamp

“The struggle ends when gratitude begins.”
– Neale Donald Walsch

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.”
– Robert Holden

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.”
– Kristin Armstrong

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Aesop

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch

Want more positive inspiration for your Thanksgiving? Then have a look at these short Thanksgiving quotes, the Thanksgiving quotes for gratitude at work here and also this one with funny Thanksgiving quotes for a less stressful holiday.

When we think about Thanksgiving we often think about family and close friends.

But another important part is expressing gratitude at work to your coworkers or employees (or maybe to your boss if you got a good one).

So in today’s post I’d like to help you out with that and with finding the right words. This is 101 of the most positive, heartfelt and funny Thanksgiving quotes for work.

Use one or a couple of them in a card for your favorite coworker or your team, in an email going out to your employees or maybe at a Thanksgiving lunch at work.

I hope you’ll find something here to help you express how grateful you are for the things people in your workplace have said and done throughout the year.

Thanksgiving Quotes to Express Your Gratitude for Your Coworkers

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
– Albert Schweitzer

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect towards others.”
– Dalai Lama

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

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
– Walter Winchell

“No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”
– Alfred North Whitehead

“When you meet people, show real appreciation, then genuine curiosity.”
– Martha Beck

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.”
– Max de Pree

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”
– John F. Kennedy

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

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

“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

“Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you’ll soon find many others around you.”
– Ralph Marston

“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
– Elie Wiesel

“There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.”
– Helen Keller

“Being considerate of others will take you and your children further in life than any college or professional degree.”
– Marian Wright Edelman

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

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

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

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
– William Jones

Short Thanksgiving Quotes and Sayings for Work

“A moment of gratitude makes a difference in your attitude.”
– Bruce Wilkinson

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
– William Blake

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”
– Doris Day

“Let all your thinks be thanks.”
– W.H. Auden

“No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.”
– James Allen

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
– Meister Eckhart

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

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

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

“Contentment is the greatest treasure.”
– Lao Tzu

“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”
– Brené Brown

“Gratitude changes everything.”
– Marian Wright Edelman

“Life is better when you’re thankful.”
– Joyce Meyer

“Gratitude is the best attitude.”
– Unknown

“Thankfulness is the quickest path to joy.”
– Jefferson Bethke

“Express gratitude for the greatness of small things.”
– Richie Norton

“Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.”
– Barbara Kingsolver

“Everything is a gift.”
– Osho

“Through the eyes of Gratitude, everything is a miracle.”
– Mary Davis

“Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.”
– Rumi

Heartfelt Thanksgiving Quotes for Your Employees

“A little ‘thank you’ that you will say to someone for a ‘little favour’ shown to you is a key to unlock the doors that hide unseen ‘greater favours’.”
– Israelmore Ayivor

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.”
– Kristin Armstrong

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

“Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”
– C.S. Lewis

“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.”
– Douglas Wood

“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.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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

“I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.”
– Will Arnett

“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

“The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.”
– Vietnamese Proverb

“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.”
– Hausa Proverb

“The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.”
– Hannah Whitall Smith

“God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say ‘thank you?’”
– William Arthur Ward

“Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.”
– Estonian Proverb

“From young to old, there are two words that carry a person forth in grace and honor; please and thank you.”
– Byron Pulsifer

“Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.”
– William Makepeace Thackeray

“Always have an attitude of gratitude.”
– Sterling K. Brown

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

“Gratitude bestows reverence…changing forever how we experience life and the world.”
– John Milton

Funny Thanksgiving Quotes on Work, the Holidays and All That Food

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

“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”
– Mark Twain

“The turkey. The sweet potatoes. The stuffing. The pumpkin pie. Is there anything else we all can agree so vehemently about?”
– Nora Ephron

“God gave us our relatives; thank God we can choose our friends.”
– Ethel Watts Mumford

“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.”
– Alphonse Karr

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
– Erma Bombeck

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”
– Kevin James

“You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.”
– Jay Leno

“An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.”
– Irv Kupcinet

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
– Jim Davis

“I suppose I will die never knowing what pumpkin pie tastes like when you have room for it.”
– Robert Brault

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”
– Erma Bombeck

“I can’t cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast.”
– Charlie Brown

“Thanksgiving is the meal we aspire for other meals to resemble.”
– Jonathan Safran Foer

“What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?”
– Erma Bombeck

“I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that.”
– Howie Mandel

“Thanksgiving: when the people who are the most thankful are the ones who didn’t have to cook.”
– Melanie White

“My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.”
– Phyllis Diller

“If someone ever says you’re weird, say thank you.”
– Ellen DeGeneres

Positive and Thoughtful Thanksgiving Quotes for the Workplace

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
– William Arthur Ward

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

“I think gratitude is a big thing. It puts you in a place where you’re humble.”
– Andra Day

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

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

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.”
– Melody Beattie

“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily.”
– Gerald Good

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

“Thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
– Rumi

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

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are.”
– Joyce Giraud

“Change your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly.”
– Tony Robbins

“None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude. Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.”
– Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

“I will thank God for the day and the moment I have.”
– Jim Valvano

“There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.”
– Joyce Meyer

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

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

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

“Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever.”
– Charlotte Brontë

Want more uplifting inspiration? Then check out these short Thanksgiving quotes, the funny quotes and sayings about Thanksgiving here and also this one with inspirational and positive Thanksgiving quotes.

Thanksgiving is almost here.

A time to spend with loved ones. To eat delicious food, relax and have fun together.

And to take some time to reflect on what you can be grateful for (both small and bigger things in life).

So I thought this would be a good time to share 100 of the most inspirational, grateful and funny short Thanksgiving quotes.

Use them in a text or a group chat with friends. For your social media like Instagram or in your home on a letter board. Or in real life sometime during your Thanksgiving holiday.

Short and Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes and Sayings

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.”
– Melody Beattie

“Thanksgiving creates abundance.”
– Ann Voskamp

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.”
– Kristin Armstrong

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Aesop

“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.”
– Douglas Wood

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

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

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

“The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.”
– Dalai Lama

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

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

“I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.”
– Will Arnett

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
– William Arthur Ward

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

“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.”
– Hausa Proverb

“The struggle ends when gratitude begins.”
– Neale Donald Walsch

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.”
– James E. Faust

“Be thankful for what you have. Your life is someone else’s fairy tale.”
– Wale Ayeni

Short Thanksgiving Quotes for Gratitude at Work

“No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”
– Alfred North Whitehead

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”
– John F. Kennedy

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

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch

“A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness.”
– James E. Faust

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

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.”
– Henri Frederic Amiel

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

“The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.”
– Robert Holden

“No gesture is too small when done with gratitude.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”
– Tony Robbins

“Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe.”
– Deepak Chopra

“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”
– Lionel Hampton

“Gratitude will shift you to a higher frequency, and you will attract much better things.”
– Rhonda Byrne

“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.”
– Amy Collette

“A moment of gratitude makes a difference in your attitude.”
– Bruce Wilkinson

“Thankfulness creates gratitude which generates contentment that causes peace.”
– Todd Stocker

“Gratitude changes everything.”
– Marian Wright Edelman

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Life is better when you’re thankful.”
– Joyce Meyer

Short and Funny Thanksgiving Quotes for Less Holiday Stress

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”
– Kevin James

“The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.”
– Jay McInerney

“I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that.”
– Howie Mandel

“A new survey found that 80 percent of men claim they help cook Thanksgiving dinner. Which makes sense, when you hear they consider saying ‘that smells good’ to be helping.”
– Jimmy Fallon

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.”
– Jim Davis

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
– Erma Bombeck

“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
– Oscar Wilde

“You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.”
– Jay Leno

“If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys.”
– Mitch Hedberg

“I suppose I will die never knowing what pumpkin pie tastes like when you have room for it.”
– Robert Brault

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the eons, it’s that you can’t give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it.”
– Rick Riordan

“Cooking tip: Wrap turkey leftovers in aluminum foil and throw them out.”
– Nicole Hollander

“An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.”
– Irv Kupcinet

“Keep your friends close, but your relatives at a distance during Thanksgiving dinner.”
– David Letterman

“The only thing I like better than talking about food is eating.”
– John Walters

“My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.”
– Phyllis Diller

“I’m looking forward to seeing pie this Thanksgiving more than members of my own family.”
– Damien Fahey

“It’s not the minutes spent at the Thanksgiving table that put on weight, it’s the seconds.”
– Unknown

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

“Every Thanksgiving I bring the champagne, because in my family we all know what our strengths are.”
– Gloria Fallon

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
– W.C. Fields

“Some family trees bear an enormous crop of nuts.”
– Wayne Huizenga

Short Thanksgiving Quotes for Family to Express Your Gratitude

“The most important thing in the world is family and love.”
– John Wooden

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”
– Michael J. Fox

“That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.”
– Deb Caletti

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.”
– Anthony Brandt

“I sustain myself with the love of family.”
– Maya Angelou

“What greater blessing to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering.”
– Robert Brault

“Home is people. Not a place.”
– Robin Hobb

“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
– Desmond Tutu

“So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family.”
– Haniel Long

“Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.”
– Irina Shayk

“This is part of what a family is about, not just love.”
– Mitch Albom

“It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.”
– Peter Buffett

“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

“Forever on Thanksgiving the heart will find the pathway home.”
– Wilbur D. Nesbit

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues are created.”
– Winston Churchill

“The turkey. The sweet potatoes. The stuffing. The pumpkin pie. Is there anything else we all can agree so vehemently about?”
– Nora Ephron

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

“Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings.”
– Joyce Giraud

“Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It’s a way to live.”
– Jackie Windspear

Short Thanksgiving Quotes for Your Beloved Friends

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

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

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
– Walter Winchell

“Real friendship is when your friend comes over to your house on Thanksgiving and doesn’t judge you for eating pie straight from the tin.”
– Jim Harper

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

“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

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

“Friendship is the wine of life.”
– Edward Young

“If you have one true friend you have more than your share.”
– Thomas Fuller

“True friendship resists time, distance and silence.”
– Isabel Allende

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

“I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.”
– William Shakespeare

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“Good friends are like pumpkin pie – sweet and always there when you need them.”
– Sandra Shea

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
– Maya Angelou

“Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness and gratitude.”
– Nigel Hamilton

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
– William Blake

“Thanksgiving is a joyous invitation to shower the world with love and gratitude.”
– Amy Leigh Mercree

“What I love about Thanksgiving is that it’s purely about getting together with friends or family and enjoying food.”
– Daniel Humm

“Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say.”
– Alice Walker

Want more inspiration for your holiday? Then have a look at these inspirational Thanksgiving quotes, the funny quotes about Thanksgiving here and also this one with short Thanksgiving captions.

“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.”
Albert Schweitzer

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.”
Amelia Earhart

A very simple way to spread more happiness in your own little world is through kindness. It’s often an easy and quick thing you can do as you move through your daily life.

But we sometimes forget about it. Or don’t remember how it can help us all.

Three things that I like to keep in mind and that help me to try to be a kinder person are these:

• I get what I give. Yes, some people will be ungrateful, miserable and not reciprocating no matter what you may do. But most people will over time treat you as you treat them.
• By being kinder to others I am more likely to be kinder to myself. It may sound a bit odd but my experience is that when I am kinder towards others then my self-esteem goes up.
• It creates a happier place to live in. Being kinder simply makes my own little world a nicer and happier place to live in.

So how can you start spreading the kindness and happiness in your daily life?

Here are 15 simple ways to do it.

Pick one of them that resonates with you and start using it today.

1. Express your gratitude. 

Think about what you can be grateful for about someone in your life.

Maybe that he is a good listener, that he often is quick to help out or that he always adds great songs to a Spotify playlist. Or simply that he held up the door for you.

Then express that gratitude in a simple “thank you!” or in a sincere sentence or two.

2. Replace the judgments. 

No one likes to be judged. And the more you judge other people the more you tend to judge yourself.

So despite the temporary benefit of deriving pleasure from the judgments it is not a good or smart long-term habit.

When you feel the urge to judge ask yourself: what is one kind thing I can think or do in this situation instead?

3. Replace the unconstructive criticism. 

Try encouragement instead of excessive criticism. It helps people to both raise their self-confidence and to do a better job.

And it will make things more fun and more light-hearted in the long run.

4. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. 

It is quite easy to resort to unkindness when you see things just from your perspective.

Two questions that help me to see and to better understand other viewpoints are:

• How would I think and feel it if I were in his or her shoes?
• What parts of this person can I see in myself?

5. Recall how people’s kindness made you feel.

Just sit down for a few minutes and try to recall one time or a few times when other people’s kindness really touched you and helped you out.

Then think about how you can do those very same things for someone in your life.

6. Express kindness for something you may often take for granted.

It is easy to remember and to feel motivated to express kindness when someone is having a rough time or have just finished an important project.

But also remember to express kindness and encouragement for how someone continues to put so much love into the dinners you eat. Or for being on time every day and doing their job well and keeping deadlines.

7. Hide a surprising and kind note.

Leave a small note with a loving or encouraging sentence in your partner’s or child’s lunchbox, hat, tea-container or book that he or she is reading right now.

That minute of your time will put a smile on her face and joy and motivation in her heart.

8. Just be there.

Listen – without thinking about something else – when someone needs to vent.

Just be there fully with your attention.

Or have a conversation and help someone find his or her way out of fear and to a more constructive and grounded perspective.

9. Remember the small acts of kindness too.

Let someone into your lane while driving. Let someone skip ahead of you in a line if he’s in a real hurry.

Hold up the door for someone or ask if they need help when you see them standing around with a map and a confused look.

10. Give someone an uplifting gift.

Someone in your life may have a a tough time right now. Then send him or her an inspirational book or movie. 

Or simply send an email with a link to something inspiring or funny that you have found like a blog, podcast or a comic.

11. Help someone out practically.

Give them a hand when moving or with making dinner or arrangements before a party.

If they need information, then help out by googling it or by asking knowledgeable people that you know.

12. Help the people in your life see how they make a difference in their lives.

When you talk to someone about his or her day or what has been going on lately then make sure to point out how he or she also has spread kindness and happiness.

People are often unaware of the positive things they do or they minimize them in their own minds.

So help them to see themselves in a more positive light and to improve their own self-esteem.

13. Remember the 3 reasons for kindness at the start of this article.

It will help you to be kinder even when you may not always feel much like it.

If you like, write those reasons down on a piece of paper and put that note where you can see it every day.

14. Pay it forward.

When someone does something kind for you – no matter how big or small – then try to pay that forward by being kind to someone else as soon as you can.

15. Be kinder towards yourself.

Then you will naturally treat other people with more kindness too. It is truly a win-win habit.

A simple way to start being kinder toward yourself is to each evening write down 3 things you appreciate about yourself and about what you have done that day in a journal.

 

Leon Bennett/Getty Images for ESSENCE/Henry Nicholls/Getty Images

Alex Wong via Getty Images

Andrew Harnik via Getty Images

Practically speaking, it is not possible to grumble and glorify God in the same breath. If we set our minds to cultivating gratitude in our marriages, it will chase out the grumbling.

During a particularly grumbly time in my marriage, I felt the Lord impress on my heart to practice the passage from Philippians diligently. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” Philippians 4:8-9.

Every time my mind wanted to return to my grumble list, I would do my best to pick up my thoughts and set them on the things that were true, honorable, excellent, right, pure, lovely, good, and praiseworthy in our marriage. And there were many! But if I had let the struggles and misunderstandings have their way with me, I wouldn’t be able to see the good. I wouldn’t be capable of gratitude.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world Philippians 2:14-15

Having a grateful heart in our marriage is a specific and practical way we share our testimony with people – it makes us a light in the world!

May the Lord breathe grace and gratitude into your marriage so that you would have joy together and shine with His redeeming light for others to know Him more!

Related Resource: Why We Go to Bed Mad (And Why It’s Helped Our Marriage)

Within the Christian community, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” is often quoted as a hard-and-fast rule for married couples to follow whenever they experience conflict. But sometimes Ted and I do go to bed mad—and surprisingly, it’s been good for our marriage. In today’s episode of Team Us, we’ll tell you why. If this episode helps your marriage, be sure to subscribe to Team Us on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode.