“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”

— Thornton Wilder

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude." by Thornton Wilder?

Thornton Wilder 61

American playwright and novelist 1897–1975

Related quotes

“Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

“I loathe a friend whose gratitude grows old, a friend who takes his friend's prosperity but will not voyage with him in his grief”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511
1963
Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers — for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

“Count not the cost of honour to the dead!
The tribute that a mighty nation pays
To those who loved her well in former days
Means more than gratitude for glories fled;
For every noble man that she hath bred,
Lives in the bronze and marble that we raise,
Immortalised by art's immortal praise,
To lead our sons as he our fathers led.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

National Monuments, st. 1 (February 1905).

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: Unsourced

“What we call mourning for our dead is perhaps not so much grief at not being able to call them back as it is grief at not being able to want to do so.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Was wir Trauer nennen, ist vielleicht nicht sowohl der Schmerz über die Unmöglichkeit, unsere Toten ins Leben kehren zu sehen, als darüber, dies gar nicht wünschen zu können.
http://books.google.com/books?id=q4UdAAAAMAAJ&q=%22was+wir+Trauer+nennen+ist+vielleicht+nicht+sowohl+der+Schmerz+%C3%BCber+die+Unm%C3%B6glichkeit+unsere+Toten+ins+Leben+kehren+zu+sehen+als+dar%C3%BCber+dies+gar+nicht+w%C3%BCnschen+zu+k%C3%B6nnen%22&pg=PA562#v=onepage
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 7

“If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Scyrii, Frag. 510.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“There give thy griefs full vent to flow
O'er the unconscious dead,
With no spectator to thy woe
But my attendant shade.”

Ann Eliza Bleecker (1752–1783) American poet, correspondent

A Complaint

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Thornton Wilder 61

Related quotes

Related topics