Quotes About Gratitude

I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.

But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,     to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly; for example—I think this     as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch— the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the     daisies for the field.

No poet ever wrote a poem to dishonor life, to compromise high ideals, to scorn religious views, to demean hope or gratitude, to argue against tenderness, to place rancor before love, or to praise littleness of soul. Not one. Not ever.

So it is if the heart has devoted itself to love, there is not a single inch of emptiness. Gladness gleams all the way to the grave.

What does it mean... that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it?

Oh, mother earth, your comfort is great, your arms never withhold. It has saved my life to know this. Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.

Every summer I gather a few stones from the beach and keep them in a glass bowl. Now and again I cover them with water, and they drink. There's no question about this; I put tinfoil over the bowl, tightly, yet the water disappears. This doesn't mean we ever have a conversation, or that they have the kind of feelings we do, yet it might mean something. Whatever the stones are, they don't lie in the water and do nothing.

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions.

What good does it do to lie all day in the sun loving what is easy?

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.

The chickens ate all the crickets. The foxes ate all the chickens. This morning a friend hauled his boat to shore and gave me the most wondrous fish. In its silver scales it seemed dressed for a wedding. The gills were pulsing, just above where shoulders would be, if it had had shoulders. The eyes were still looking around, I don't know what they were thinking. The chickens ate all the crickets. The foxes ate all the chickens. I ate the fish.

When I wake, and you are already wiping the stars away

to know our world is to be busy all day long with happiness.

if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead. Every morning, so far, I'm alive.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I've been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Listen, once again, as again, and again, we are given this single wisdom: to know our world is to be busy all day long with happiness.

In this early dancing of a new day— dogs leaping on the beach, dolphins leaping not far from shore— someone is bending over me, is kissing me slowly.

everything. I felt like the little donkey when his burden is finally lifted. Things! Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful fire! More room in your heart for love, for the trees! For the birds who own nothing—the reason they can fly.

It is what I was born for— to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world— to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant— but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.

He bowed to show his respect. "Thank you," said Jack and Annie. They bowed back to him.

Thanks," said Annie. "Thanks," said Jack.

And finally, my gratitude to UM 006, H, Mr. Blank, Ben, the big guy in the sweatpants, and the owners of the forty heads. You are dead, but you're not forgotten.

Gradually I found that my name signed to a check was even more welcome than when signed to a letter

She wrote, "I can never thank you enough, Mrs. Robertson, for being so kind and understanding with the whole of Fleet Street following me!!