Quotes About Gratitude

She looked down. He had clasped his hands together, his fingers interlaced. It was a gesture, she thought, of unequivocal pleasure--pleasure at hearing what all of us wanted to hear at least occasionally: that there was somebody who liked us, whatever our faults, and liked us sufficiently to say so.

all the good things that we have in life are on temporary loan, at best, and can be taken away from us in an instant.

The poem had said something about being grateful for the small scale, for the local, for the minor things that gave meaning to life. And Angus was right: these things were being forgotten in the headlong rush into globalisation, which drained identity out of life, rendered it distant, impersonal.

Mma Ramotswe had expected no thanks for what she had done. You helped other people—you just did. Had her van broken down, then she would have hoped that somebody would have done the same for her, and she thought that they would.

But it seemed to her that Mma Ramotswe needed persuading, and so she continued, "What else do you need in life, Mma? You have a fine husband—which is one of the most important things that anybody can have.

And then," Mma Potokwane continued, "you have a successful business. You have the two children. You have your Zebra Drive home. You have so much, Mma." She looked at her friend with a touch of reproach. "You have nothing further to achieve, Mma. Nothing.

I am blessed, and being blessed is something more than just having something; it is a state of mind in which the good of the world is illuminated, is understood. It is as if one is vouchsafed a vision of some sort, she thought, a vision of love, of agape, of the essential value of each and every living thing.

We should be happy when people have chairs," he admonished. "We should be happy, even if we do not have a chair ourselves.

YES, THOUGHT Mma Ramotswe, the world can be very discouraging. But we cannot sit and think about all the things that have gone wrong, or could go wrong. There was no point in doing that because it only made things worse. There was much for which we could be grateful, whatever the sorrows of this world. Besides, dwelling on the trials and tribulations of life was time-consuming, and ordinary duties still have to be performed; livings have to be earned

Ulf nodded. "Many of us have to settle for something," he said. "And then we find the thing we've settled for is as good as the thing we wanted to do in the first place.

there was something that Isabel had said that always stuck in his mind. Remember what you have and the other person doesn't. It was simple--almost too simple--advice and yet, like all such home advice, it expressed a profound truth.

It is so easy to thank people, said Mma Ramotswe, passing the letter over to Mma Makutsi, and most people don't bother to do it. They don't thank the person who does something for them. They just take it for granted.

suddenly realised that if he felt that he had achieved nothing it was because he had failed to cherish what he had in fact done. He had filled his days doing ordinary, unexceptional things and thought nothing of them. But they were far from nothing:

one fewer personal world was about to be destroyed through the selfishness or inconstancy of another. That, at least, was cause for gratitude.

Gratitude was a lost art, she felt. People accepted things, took them as their right, and had forgotten how to give proper thanks.

Giving gave every bit as much pleasure as receiving—if not more, and denying that pleasure to others could be churlish.

am lucky that I can make somebody so happy just by saying something.

Worse things have happened, is what she says in such circumstances. And I suppose she's right. There's always something worse happening elsewhere. It's worth reminding ourselves of that, I suppose.

Indeed, it was so easy to make anybody happy. All that was required was a kind word or two—a kind word that cost nothing, and yet could have such a profound effect.

Love had transformed the world for me. Transformed it.

But we are all fortunate in one way or another. The task for most of us is to identify in what way that is, would you not agree?" 81.

I am immensely fortunate. I am alive. In this vast cosmos of swirling planets, so many of them sterile and dead, baking or swathed in clouds of methane or whatever it is they are swathed in, I am alive in a dear green place…and there is somebody who actually loves me.

Everything could always be worse,' she would say, 'and so be grateful that things are only as bad as they are.' She

Mr Pilai looked down. "Mma Ramotswe," he said. "Please let me look at you. I have just been given these new spectacles, and I can see the world clearly for the first time in years. Ow! It is a wonderful thing. I had forgotten what it was like to see clearly. And there you are, Mma. You are looking very beautiful, very fat.