Thanksgiving Quotes

Peruse these Thanksgiving quotes for that special turkey day celebration or to help you have a thankful heart for all of your daily blessings. We have so much to be thankful for!

About Thanksgiving Day

Make Your Guests Feel Special - Order Delicious Cookie Placecards

“A person’s name is to that person, sweetest, most important sound in any language.” ~ Dale Carnegie

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Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~ E.P. Powell

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.
~ Edward Sandford Martin

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

Thanksgiving is the holiday of peace, the celebration of work and the simple life... a true folk-festival that speaks the poetry of the turn of the seasons, the beauty of seedtime and harvest, the ripe product of the year - and the deep, deep connection of all these things with God.
~ Ray Stannard Baker (David Grayson)

Thanksgiving is America's national chow-down feast, the one occasion each year when gluttony becomes a patriotic duty.
~ Michael Dresser

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Gratitude

Utilizing a daily gratitude journal is a practice encouraged by the famous celebrity, Oprah Winfrey.

"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 praise and celebrate your life,
the more there is in life to celebrate."
~ Oprah Winfrey

"Keep a grateful journal.
Every night, list five things you are grateful for."
~ Oprah Winfrey

      BUY Journal #1           BUY Journal #2         BUY Journal #3     

For a larger selection of Gratitude Journals, CLICK HERE.

Above are some of my favorite gratitude journals because of the inspirational quotes shown on the cover.

QUOTE ON JOURNAL #1

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
~ Cicero

QUOTE ON JOURNAL #2

In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.
~ Albert Clarke

QUOTE ON JOURNAL #3

If all you did was just look for things to appreciate you would live a joyous, spectacular life.
~ Jerry & Esther Hicks

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Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.
~ Edward Sandford Martin

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
~ Johannes A. Gaertner

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

For, after all, put it as we may to ourselves, we are all of us from birth to death guests at a table which we did not spread. The sun, the earth, love, friends, our very breath are parts of the banquet.... Shall we think of the day as a chance to come nearer to our Host, and to find out something of Him who has fed us so long?
~ Rebecca Harding Davis

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Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
~ Aesop

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

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. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
~ Melody Beattie

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

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Humorous

Want to send a
REALLY Funny eCard?

Imagine the surprise on the recipient's face when they receive a hilarious ecard with their face and/or your face on the animated characters.

Must see!

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” ― Victor Borge

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When I was a kid in Indiana, we thought it would be fun to get a turkey a year ahead of time and feed it and so on for the following Thanksgiving. But by the time Thanksgiving came around, we sort of thought of the turkey as a pet, so we ate the dog. Only kidding. It was the cat.
~ David Letterman

There are a lot of New York City Thanksgiving traditions. For example, a lot of New Yorkers don't buy the frozen Thanksgiving turkey. They prefer to buy the bird live and then push it in front of a subway train.
~ David Letterman

Thanksgiving is the day when you turn to another family member and say, ‘How long has Mom been drinking like this?’ My Mom, after six Bloody Marys looks at the turkey and goes, ‘Here, kitty, kitty.’’
~ David Letterman

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

Thanksgiving is an emotional time. 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

Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
~ Irving Berlin

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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, "No One Diets on Thanksgiving," 26 November 1981

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

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.
~ Irv Kupcinet

On Thanksgiving Day, all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment - halftime.
~ Unknown

Thanksgiving is America's national chow-down feast, the one occasion each year when gluttony becomes a patriotic duty.
~ Michael Dresser

Coexistence: what the farmer does with the turkey - until Thanksgiving.
~ Mike Connolly

“Thanksgiving is possible only for those who take time to remember; no one can give thanks who has a short memory.” ~Author Unknown

I have strong doubts that the first Thanksgiving even remotely resembled the "history" I was told in second grade. But considering that (when it comes to holidays) mainstream America's traditions tend to be over-eating, shopping, or getting drunk, I suppose it's a miracle that the concept of giving thanks even surfaces at all.
~ Ellen Orleans

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Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.
~ Kevin James

The thing I'm most thankful for right now is elastic waistbands.
~ Unknown

Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

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

Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year.
~ P. J. O'Rourke

You know that just before that first Thanksgiving dinner there was one wise, old Native American woman saying, ‘Don't feed them. If you feed them, they'll never leave.’
~ Dylan Brody

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Indian Sayings

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
~ Native American Saying

Happiness is the realization of God in the heart. Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving, of faith, of acceptance; a quiet tranquil realization of the love of God.
~ White Eagle

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Insightful

It is delightfully easy to thank God for the grace we ourselves have received, but it requires great grace to thank God always for the grace given to others.
~ James Smith

If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.
~ Robert Quillen

How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child’s personality. A child is resentful, negative—or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people.
~ Sir John Templeton

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

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
~ Charles Dickens

Thanksgiving like contentment is a learned attribute. The person who hasn't learned to be content we will not be thankful for he lives with the delusion he deserves more or something better.
~ Robert Flatt

Thank God every day when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues, which the idle will never know.
~ Basil Carpenter

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

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Inspirational

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
~ Thornton Wilder

Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.
~ Attributed to Jacqueline Winspear

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
~ Cicero

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.
~ Izaak Walton

Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
~ Seneca

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. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
~ Melody Beattie

Return to Index of Thanksgiving Quotes

Jaded

Happy We-Stole-Your-Land-and-Killed-Your-People Day!
~ Thanksgiving toast, from the movie Sweet November

The funny thing about Thanksgiving, or any huge meal, is that you spend 12 hours shopping for it and then chopping and cooking and braising and blanching. Then it takes 20 minutes to eat it and everybody sort of sits around in a food coma, and then it takes four hours to clean it up.
~ Ted Allen

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

Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year.
~ P. J. O'Rourke

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

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Nostalgia

Sharing Good Times and Reminiscing on the Holidays...

Imagine the fun of reminiscing and laughing while putting together a puzzle of that special family photo that brings back fond memories.

“A photograph can be an instant
of life captured for eternity
that will never cease
looking back at you.”
― Brigitte Bardot

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Ah! on Thanksgiving day....When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
~ John Greenleaf Whittier

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
~ O. Henry

Forever on Thanksgiving DayThe heart will find the pathway home.
~ Wilbur D. Nesbit

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Pilgrims

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.
~ H.U. Westermayer

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Practical Advice

It's better to pace yourself throughout a big day like Thanksgiving by having something healthful for breakfast and something light for lunch.
~ Marilu Henner

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Praise God

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.
~ Izaak Walton

Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.
~ A.W. Tozer

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Prayer

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.
~ Eckhart Tolle

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Proverbs

Who does not thank for little, will not thank for much.
~ Estonian proverb

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Pumpkin Pie

But see, in our open clearings, how golden the melons lie;Enrich them with sweets and spices, and give us the pumpkin-pie!
~ Margaret Junkin Preston

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Quotes by Famous People

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
~ Aesop

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,Patient of labour when the end was rest,Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
~ Alexander Pope

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
~ Cicero

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
~ Charles Dickens

Return to Index of Thanksgiving Quotes

When I was a kid in Indiana, we thought it would be fun to get a turkey a year ahead of time and feed it and so on for the following Thanksgiving. But by the time Thanksgiving came around, we sort of thought of the turkey as a pet, so we ate the dog. Only kidding. It was the cat.
~ David Letterman

There are a lot of New York City Thanksgiving traditions. For example, a lot of New Yorkers don't buy the frozen Thanksgiving turkey. They prefer to buy the bird live and then push it in front of a subway train.
~ David Letterman

Thanksgiving is the day when you turn to another family member and say, ‘How long has Mom been drinking like this?’ My Mom, after six Bloody Marys looks at the turkey and goes, ‘Here, kitty, kitty’.
~ David Letterman

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, "No One Diets on Thanksgiving," 26 November 1981

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

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

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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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

Thanksgiving is an emotional time. 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

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.
~ O. Henry

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

Return to Index of Thanksgiving Quotes

For each new morning with its light,For rest and shelter of the night,For health and food, for love and friends,For everything Thy goodness sends.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

For flowers that bloom about our feet;For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see,Father in heaven, we thank Thee!
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

The funny thing about Thanksgiving, or any huge meal, is that you spend 12 hours shopping for it and then chopping and cooking and braising and blanching. Then it takes 20 minutes to eat it and everybody sort of sits around in a food coma, and then it takes four hours to clean it up.
~ Ted Allen

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

Happiness is the realization of God in the heart. Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving, of faith, of acceptance; a quiet tranquil realization of the love of God.
~ White Eagle

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

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
~ William Shakespeare

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Quotes from Movies

Happy We-Stole-Your-Land-and-Killed-Your-People Day!
~ Thanksgiving toast, from the movie Sweet November

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Thanksgiving

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

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

Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for His goodness.
~ Robert Casper Lintner

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.
~ Meister Eckhart

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~ E.P. Powell

Remember God’s bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!
~ Henry Ward Beecher

He who thanks but with the lips
Thanks but in part;
The full, the true Thanksgiving
Comes from the heart.
~ J.A. Shedd

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For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
~ Henry Ward Beecher

Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness, universal to all ages and all faiths. At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings.
~ J. Robert Moskin

Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more:Peace in the hearts of all men living,peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving.
~ Joseph Auslander

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It is literally true, as the thankless say, that they have nothing to be thankful for. He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient. But a thankful heart hath a continual feast.
~ W.J. Cameron

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
~ Native American Saying

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say ‘thank you?’
~ William A. Ward

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Thanksgiving Day Games

Deluxe Thanksgiving and Fall Harvest
Games Collection

Over 30 Fall & Harvest and Thanksgiving games, including all new games and Personalize It! games as well.

Answer keys are always included.

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Turkey Bowl

What's the number one sport viewed on Thanksgiving day?

Football, of course! See who will be the first sports fan to match these NFL teams from the clues given.

Answer key included.

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Thanksgiving Family Bingo

This fun bingo twist is one guests will love!

Instead of random words in the squares, type in their names! Guests will be delighted when they hear their name called.

Perfect for Thanksgiving holiday parties and of course, Family Reunions.

Generator makes multiple cards, just tell it how many guests you have, type in your words, and it makes them all for you! Call card included.

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Thanksgiving Poems

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

~ Author Unknown

At Grandma's House

I like the taste of turkey
Any time throughout the year
But it never seems to taste as good
As when Thanksgiving's here.

Could be it's all the trimmings
That are cooked with it to eat-
But I think it's eating at Grandma's house
That makes it such a treat!

~ Author Unknown

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Turkey

Coexistence: what the farmer does with the turkey - until Thanksgiving.
~ Mike Connolly

Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.
~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

Return to Index of Thanksgiving Quotes

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