Quotes About Appreciation

You can die now, with three healthy children, your husband of almost fifty years alive and well, and five grandchildren whom you love and who love you, all well, all happy'—well, I think Mom would have thought that wasn't a bad deal.

I used to say that the greatest gift you could ever give anyone is a book. But I don't say that anymore because I no longer think it's true. I now say that a book is the second greatest gift. I've come to believe that the greatest gift you can give people is to take the time to talk with them about a book you've shared.

The latter therapy has its roots in a philosophy called Naikan, developed by Ishin Yoshimoto. Naikan reminds people to be grateful for everything. If you are sitting in a chair, you need to realize that someone made that chair, and someone sold it, and someone delivered it—and you are the beneficiary of all that. Just because they didn't do it especially for you doesn't mean you aren't blessed to be using it and enjoying it.

I often forget that other people's stories aren't simply introductions to my own more engaging, more dramatic, more relevant, and better-told tales, but rather ends in themselves, tales I can learn from or repeat or dissect or savor.

the book, Lamott says the two best prayers are "Help me, Help me, Help me" and "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

Feasting the Heart by Reynolds Price,

It is my habit to buy cheap editions of old, obscure books and see what I can discover there. If the professors of literature knew the sources of my ideas, they would be astounded at the Philistine. But there is a greater pleasure in picking up a small pearl in an ash-can than in looking at a large one in a jeweler's window.

What I suddenly understood was that a thank-you note isn't the price you pay for receiving a gift, as so many children think it is, a kind of minimum tribute or toll, but an opportunity to count your blessings. And gratitude isn't what you give in exchange for something; it's what you feel when you are blessed—blessed to have family and friends who care about you, and who want to see you happy. Hence the joy from thanking.

I hate flowers to death. What are they for? You cannot eat them. They die in a day. They are a complete waste of money.

If our so-called understanding of animals does not ignite within us a loving urge to allow them to fulfill their lives and purposes, to honor, respect and appreciate them, then it is not true understanding. Our science is in many ways incapable of this authentic understanding, and, because it is also often a vehicle of corporate power, it is best not to rely on it too heavily in our quest for wisdom or healing.

My mom's discipline worked out perfectly. I wouldn't change a thing.

Applaus," zei hij, "wat een vreselijke manier om een kunstenaar te belonen. Hij heeft zich ingespannen de mooiste muziek te zingen of te spelen en het brengt zijn publiek tot niets anders dan het maken van het eentonigste lawaai dat er bestaat.

De Nederlandse literatuur wordt helaas niet alleen door de Nederlanders zelf voor onbeduidend gehouden.

Een boek is voor hem [C. Buddingh'] zo iets als een rommelwinkel voor andere koopjesjagers. Je vindt hier en daar wat moois, een aardig vaasje, een raar plaatje, maar de winkelvoorraad als geheel interesseert je geen zier. Zo leest Kees boeken. Hij pikt er zinnetjes uit, zoals een kind snot uit z'n neus peutert en smakelijk opeet, zonder te weten hoe het is ontstaan, zonder zich in de functie van slijmvliezen en de ademhaling te verdiepen, zonder iets te begrijpen van de totale mens, hè.

Wat zij mij gaf, was voldoende. Misschien waren het korstjes brood, eigenlijk voor de meeuwen bestemd; ik was er gelukkig mee, of kon doen alsof.

Pluck not the wayside flower; It is the traveler's dower.

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you"?

the easiest way for us to gain happiness is to learn how to want the things we already have.

One reason children are capable of joy is because they take almost nothing for granted.

We need, in other words, to learn how to enjoy things without feeling entitled to them and without clinging to them.

we can do some historical research to see how our ancestors lived. We will quickly discover that we are living in what to them would have been a dream world that we tend to take for granted things that our ancestors had to live without...

Negative visualization, in other words, teaches us to embrace whatever life we happen to be living and to extract every bit of delight we can from it. But it simultaneously teaches us to prepare ourselves for changes that will deprive us of the things that delight us. It teaches us, in other words, to enjoy what we have without clinging to it.

one wonderful way to tame our tendency to always want more is to persuade ourselves to want the things we already have.