Quotes About Appreciation

Pickled onions had nothing to do with moral imagination, but were important in their own quiet, vinegary way, Isabel supposed.

I am grateful to you for being who you are: for standing up for ladies with large glasses and a bad skin and for everybody else who has had to battle to get where they have got. And most of all I am grateful to you for being my friend, Mma; I am grateful to you for that. That is the best thing that anybody can be to anybody else--a friend.

One might forget so many exotic cheeses, he thought, but the memory of cheddar always remained. Should one be embarrassed by choosing cheddar every time? he asked. Matthew laughed. There's no need to apologize for simple things. But is cheddar simple? Domenica enquired. Just because there's a lot of it, does that make it simple?

She meant it, and as she spoke, she thought how strange it was that we so very rarely said complimentary things to our friends, and how easy it was to do so, and how it made the world seem a less harsh place.

Yes. Look at the way in which a little boy plays. He prods. He investigates things all around him. He moves them. He tries to push them over. Then look at girls. They touch things gently. They watch them. They don't try to push them about. They…" She searched for the right word. "They cherish them." The

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.

she knew that this man, this mechanic, this fixer of machines with their broken hearts, did indeed love and admire her—was like walking in the sunshine;

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.

This tea is for people who really appreciate tea. Ordinary tea is for anyone.

When she had lived in Bobonong the houses seemed perfectly normal to her and the house in which her family lived had seemed quite comfortable. But looking at it with eyes that had seen Gaborone, and the large buildings there, their house had seemed mean and cramped.

You can lose a piece of plain bread and not think twice about it, but when you lose one spread thickly with strawberry jam it's an altogether more serious matter.

She wouldn't disapprove of people who gave up philosophy or literary theory to do ordinary things. Maybe not, mused Maggie. If we eat pies, then we should never, not for one moment, look down on the making of them.

wrong to think the less of another for what he or she was. There was no moral obligation to like others, nor necessarily to enthuse over them, but we did have to recognize their equal worth.

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:

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

If the world misunderstands us, as it sometimes does, or is indifferent to our sorrows, as it often is, then the loyalty of a dog may remind us that at least in one heart are we loved and admired without question and without thought of reward or advantage.

Mma Ramotswe stepped forward and put an arm around Patience's shoulder. "Mma, " she said, "I see you." It was the oldest and simplest of African greetings: I see you. It implied so much more than it said, though, because it meant that Mma Ramotswe saw not only the person standing before her, but all that lay behind her – who she was, where she came from, how she felt.

Offering a lady a chair was one way of showing that this work was appreciated, and that strength and brute force—at which men generally tended to excel—was not the only thing that counted. Respect for ladies tamed men, and there were many men who were sorely in need of taming; that was well known, said Mma Ramotswe.

Maybe not," mused Maggie. "If we eat pies, then we should never, not for one moment, look down on the making of them." "I don't," said William.

But it had not occurred to him to praise her, because in his view she was just doing her duty as a woman and there was nothing special about that." (pg.34)

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.

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." "Thank you, Rra.