Quotes about gratitude
page 2

“This victory took place in the year 878, eight hundred and seventy-eight; the island of Sankhodar was never conquered in any age by any king of the past. It is related that the Sultan performed two genuflexions of namaz out of thanksgiving at the time of demolishing the temple and breaking the idols of Jagat. He grew eloquent in recitation of praise out of gratitude to God. The Muslims raised calls to namaz (azan) by loud voice from top of temples… He built a masjid there.”

Mahmud Begada (1458–1511) Sultan of Gujarat

Sankhodhar (Gujarat) Mirat-i-Ahmdi, translated into English by M.F. Lokhandwala, Baroda, 1965,pp 47-52

God, Age, Time, Past

“When someone is giving you his opinion, you should receive it with deep gratitude even though it is worthless. If you don't, he will not tell you the things that he has seen and heard about you again. It is best to both give and receive opinions in a friendly way.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

Way

“The Hindus' sense of gratitude knows no bounds to Muslim rulers like Zayn al-‘Abidin (1420-70) of Kashmir, ‘Alau d-Din Husayn Shah (1493-1519) of Bengal, and Akbar the Great Mughal, who behaved towards Indians as Indians and at whose hands they could heave a sigh of relief from religious persecution. The three rulers tried their utmost to Indianize their rule and restore the dignity of Hindu community and culture, the latter essaying the uphill task of integrating Islam therewith, followed in this behalf by Prince Dara Shukoh. Who that has even the faintest sense of history can dispute the point that they were all intensely Indian, putting many a Hindu to shame in their patriotic fervour.”

Alauddin Husain Shah Sultan of Bengal

Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990)

History, Communication, Sense

“I may be kind,
And meet with kindness, yet be lonely still;
For gratitude is not companionship.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness.”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 6

Happiness, World, Feeling

“For me, the massiveness of what I don’t know is one way I experience God. It creates in me a feeling of humility and a sense of gratitude.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Interview by Jonathan Robinson (1994), p. 47.

God, Way, Feeling, Sense

“Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Screwtape Letters

Letter XVI
The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Love, Fear, Past

“Special mercy arouses more gratitude than universal mercy.”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650), "The Splendor of the Saints' Rest"

Universe

“So tonight, in honor of my father's memory and my daughters' future — out of gratitude to those whose triumphs we mark this week, and those whose everyday sacrifices have brought us to this moment — let us devote ourselves to finishing their work; let us work together to fulfill their hopes; and let us stand together to elect Barack Obama president of the United States of America.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)

Hope, Memory, Future, Daughters

“Surely there is a fitness in the institution of the Lord's Supper as a standing memorial by which the church at large may commemorate the grandest act, and by which the heart of each individual believer may be reminded of his dearest friend. You, who have learned to love the Saviour, will prize His ordinance for the Saviour's sake. You who rejoice in the salvation purchased by His dying, will not fail with gratitude and faith to show the Lord's death until He come.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 371.

Love, Death, Faith, Learning

“The Best way to express one's gratitude to the Divine is to feel simply happy.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

In "Paris (1897-1904)", also in Words of The Mother Sri Aurobindo Ashram, (1987) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ljoqAAAAYAAJ, p. 163 Sayings

Happiness, Way, Feeling

“Great Iraqi men and women, members of the families of the martyrs, You have offered the homeland the best thing you could afford. Thus you have come to merit love and gratitude from all Iraqis and from its plains, mountains, skies and waters. You are good sons of this country. You have offered to the country great men who have averted harm from the country and paved its way to glory and greatness.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

President Saddam Hussein's Speech on National Day (1981)

Love, Women, Men, Family

“Mr. Gregory: Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and author of the -well-known Examples. Few in so short a life have done so much for science. The high sense which I entertain of his merits as a mathematician, is mingled with feelings of gratitude for much valuable assistance rendered to me in my earlier essays.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

George Boole " Mr Boole on a General Method in Analysis http://books.google.com/books?id=aGwOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA279," Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 134 (1844), p. 279, Footnote 1840s

Life, Feeling, Sense, Science

“Let no one charge us with capricious inconsistency in our actions against Albinus, and let no one think that I am disloyal to this alleged friend or lacking in feeling toward him. 2. We gave this man everything, even a share of the established empire, a thing which a man would hardly do for his own brother. Indeed, I bestowed upon him that which you entrusted to me alone. Surely Albinus has shown little gratitude for the many benefits I have lavished upon him. 3. Now |87 he is collecting an army to take up arms against us, scornful of your valor and indifferent to his pledge of good faith to me, wishing in his insatiable greed to seize at the risk of disaster that which he has already received in part without war and without bloodshed, showing no respect for the gods by whom he has often sworn, and counting as worthless the labors you performed on our joint behalf with such courage and devotion to duty. 4. In what you accomplished, he also had a share, and he would have had an even greater share of the honor you gained for us both if he had only kept his word. For, just as it is unfair to initiate wrong actions, so also it is cowardly to make no defense against unjust treatment. Now when we took the field against Niger, we had reasons for our hostility, not entirely logical, perhaps, but inevitable. We did not hate him because he had seized the empire after it was already ours, but rather each one of us, motivated by an equal desire for glory, sought the empire for himself alone, when it was still in dispute and lay prostrate before all. 5. But Albinus has violated his pledges and broken his oaths, and although he received from me that which a man normally gives only to his son, he has chosen to be hostile rather than friendly and belligerent instead of peaceful. And just as we were generous to him previously and showered fame and honor upon him, so let us now punish him with our arms for his treachery and cowardice. 6. His army, small and island-bred, will not stand against your might. For you, who by your valor and readiness to act on your own behalf have been victorious in many battles and have gained control of the entire East, how can you fail to emerge victorious with the greatest of ease when you have so large a number of allies and when virtually the entire army is here. Whereas they, by contrast, are few in number and lack a brave and competent general to lead them. 7. Who does not know Albinus' effeminate nature? Who does not know that his way |88 of life has prepared him more for the chorus than for the battlefield? Let us therefore go forth against him with confidence, relying on our customary zeal and valor, with the gods as our allies, gods against whom he has acted impiously in breaking his oaths, and let us be mindful of the victories we have won, victories which that man ridicules.”

Septimius Severus (145–211) Emperor of Ancient Rome

Herodian, Book 3, Chapter 6.

Life, God, Hate, Hostility

“In the second year of my residence in Gottingen, I entered my name for a course of lectures on practical physics, against the advice of all my friends, but I have never regretted so doing, as there never has been, and probably never will be, a greater man at the university than Doctor Schroder, physician to the king, who gave, at that period, his celebrated lectures on practical physics. Schroder himself was astonished at the step I had taken; but when he perceived that I fully understood him, I became one of his favourite pupils; nor had I the advantage alone of receiving private lessons gratis, but he took me with him in most of his professional visits, where I had all the advantages of his great practice. Thus I caught a putrid fever which was then very prevalent; Schroeder attended me day and night, and giving up all hopes of my recovery, he observed to one of his friends, not thinking that I understood what he said, "The expansion of the sinews increases." "Then," answered I, in a quiet manner, "I shall die in four days, according to such and such a rule of Hippocrates: pray, prepare my father to receive the news of my death." However, immediately after, a sudden turn in the disorder taking place, I soon recovered; not so my memory, which I lost for a time, so that I had forgotten the names of my best friends; my nerves were so completely shaken, that I had no wish to recover. After my recovery, Professor Schroeder being himself attacked with the same fever, requested of his wife that no other physician than myself should attend him; but when he became light-headed, she called in all the physicians of Gottingen, and these gentlemen not agreeing in opinion respecting the treatment of the patient, this great and learned man fell a victim to ignorance and jealousy, April 21, 1772. I cannot think of this celebrated and good man without shedding tears of regret and gratitude.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Death, Jealousy, Hope, Thinking

“There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this pardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us to offend her;”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Essais (1595), Book I

Law, Soul, Passion, Future

“… stop pretending to be good, and realize that doing good will do you no good on Judgement Day. Instead, repent and trust the Saviour, and then live a good life - not to impress anyone or bribe God, but out of gratitude to Him for His mercy.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Life, God

“On reaching the age of eighty, I feel fortunate that I am able to lead a life always feeling gratitude to those who have rebuilt Japan and who continue to commit themselves across the nation to the betterment and development of our country in various ways. Having already lived eighty years, I am somewhat perplexed by the question about my life in the coming years, but I would say that, while accepting the limits arising from age, I hope to continue to fulfill my role as best I can.”

Akihito (1933) Emperor of Japan

Life, Age, Hope, Way

“Jesus Christ is trying to follow me, my footsteps, all the way. He stayed in Paradise, because he did not marry. But I gave him marriage. Don’t you want to meet the wives of Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad? They sent letters of gratitude to me from spirit world. They pledge that even if their religion disappears, they will follow me. Can you imagine anyone in this world claiming to have married those past saints? The rings I prepared for their marriage cost a great deal per couple. Did I do that because I am crazy?”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

Jae Sa gwa Adam Kwon Shidae Dorae: The Arrival of the Era of the Fourth Adam's Realm http://www.unification.net/news/news19991024.html (1999-10-24)

Marriage, World, Religion, Way

“We can be sure our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will now guide you to the glory of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Homily during the Requiem Mass of the funeral of [Pope John Paul II], on April 8, 2005
2005

God, Sadness, Hope, Soul

“The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours.”

Robert Walpole (1676–1745) British statesman

Prime Minister
Source: Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), stating "Hazlitt, in his Wit and Humour, says, 'This is Walpole’s phrase'". Compare: "La reconnaissance de la plupart des hommes n'est qu'une secrète envie de recevoir de plus grands bienfaits" (translated: "The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits"), François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 298.

Sense, Future

“Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.”

Gladys Bronwyn Stern (1890–1973) British writer

Quoted in The Girl's Book of Positive Quotations By Steve Deger, Leslie Ann Gibson, p. 28

“That this House is appalled, but barely surprised, at the revelations in M15 files regarding the bizarre and inhumane proposals to use pigeons as flying bombs; recognises the important and live-saving role of carrier pigeons in two world wars and wonders at the lack of gratitude towards these gentle creatures; and believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again.”

Tony Banks (1942–2006) British politician

EDM http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=24837&SESSION=682 (Early Day Motion) 1255 proposed by Tony Banks in the House of Commons, 21 May 2004; quoted by Parliamentary Information Management Service.

War, World, Nature, Housing

“[Rwanda’s Untold Story] marks an important, informative, and decisive break from the now-more-than 20 years of false and propagandistic storytelling in the Anglo-American world that has buried the real history of the period. Both the BBC 2’s This World and the documentary’s production staff deserve their audience’s gratitude - not condemnation. […] We have seen that the 38 have a penchant for slander as well as straightforward misrepresentation. It is for committing the grave intellectual and moral crime of providing an alternative but, we believe, entirely credible and evidence-based reinterpretations of what really happened in Rwanda in 1994 that the 38 would like Rwanda’s Untold Story expunged from the BBC archives and its production team sent to the woodshed.”

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Peterson and Herman, “The Kagame-Power Lobby’s Dishonest Attack on the BBC 2’s Documentary on Rwanda” https://mronline.org/2014/11/01/hp011114-html-2/, MR Online, November 1, 2014. 2010s

World, History, Decision, Falseness

“Not only do we witness on the Holy Mount the installation of the royal lawgiver, but of the great high-priest. It is a grand valedictory service in which He is re-ordained to duty — as the banners are blessed before the army marches to the field. And the voice speaks from heaven as a sovereign gives audience to a chosen commander, and cheers him with the encouragement of royal favor. With what reverence, brethren, should we, sinners, look upon the scene! As we see Him standing alone upon the mountain — fresh from His ordination of glory — calm and kingly in His heaven-imparted strength; and then as we see Him, with firm step, treading the dark avenue which, through desertion, agony, insult, abandonment, terminates in His death upon the cross — surely our distrust should vanish, and in reliance on such a champion we should have "joy in believing." Surely our indignation against the vile sin which made all this suffering necessary should be roused within us. Surely our hearts should bound with a fervor of devotion and gratitude which the obedience of a lifetime can only inadequately express.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 67.

Death, Mountain, Suffering, Heart

“I can't love it — what is there to love? It can't love me — or you either; it can't understand a single word you say to it, or feel one spark of gratitude for all your kindness. Wait till it can show some little affection for me, and then I'll see about loving it. At present it is nothing more than a little selfish, senseless sensualist, and if you see anything adorable in it, it's all very well — I only wonder how you can.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXVIII : Parental Feelings; Arthur to Helen

Love, Feeling, Understanding, Waiting

“The day of the last hypothesis would be also the day of the last observation… An hypothesis displaced by new facts dies an honorable death. If it has itself summoned to its trial the facts by which it is annihilated, it deserves even a monument of gratitude.”

Jacob Henle (1809–1885) German physician, anatomist, and zoologist

Handbook of Rational Pathology, 1846-1853

Death

“My heart is filled with endless gratitude. Just thinking I was born as a human and have the ability to practice in this life,
with the opportunity to meet wise teachers and hear the Buddha's teachings, I am deeply moved by this unbelievable karmic affinity.”

Richard Gombrich (1937) British Indologist

"When I say I'm a Buddhist"[citation needed]

Life, Thinking, Teachers, Heart

“It is precisely because the Epicurean considered existence to be the result of pure chance that he greeted each moment with immense gratitude, like a kind of divine miracle.”

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher

trans. Michael Chase (1995), p. 252
La Philosophie comme manière de vivre (2001)

Chance

“Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, members of the House and the Senate, my fellow Americans. I come before you tonight to report on the State of the Union for the third time. I come here to thank you and to add my tribute, once more, to the nation's gratitude for this, the 89th Congress. This Congress has already reserved for itself an honored chapter in the history of America. Our nation tonight is engaged in a brutal and bitter conflict in Vietnam. Later on I want to discuss that struggle in some detail with you. It just must be the center of our concerns. But we will not permit those who fire upon us in Vietnam to win a victory over the desires and the intentions of all the American people. This nation is mighty enough, its society is healthy enough, its people are strong enough, to pursue our goals in the rest of the world while still building a Great Society here at home. And that is what I have come here to ask of you tonight.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

People, World, Home, History

“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”

William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell (1745–1836) British politician

As quoted in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 this began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907.

Forgetting

“Worthy sons and daughters these. Fit successors to those who christened our banners in the immortal beginning. Worthy sons of those who saved the Union and nationality when civil war wiped out the ambiguity from the Constitution. Ready sons of those who drew the sword for humanity's sake the first time in the world in 1898. The four million defenders on land and sea were worthy of the best traditions of a people never warlike in peace and never pacifist in war. They commanded our pride. They have our gratitude, which must have genuine expression. It's not only a duty -- it's a privilege to see that the sacrifices made shall be requited, and that those still suffering from casualties and visibilities shall be abundantly aided and restored to the highest capabilities of citizenship and its enjoyments.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1920s, The American Soldier (1920)

War, People, World, Peace

“Not that we would detract one iota from the benevolence which does exist in humanity; there is both more gratitude and more cause for gratitude than it is the fashion now-a-days to admit: but this we do say, that the obligation is never from those on whom we have a claim. Kindness is always unexpected; and “overcomes us like a summer cloud," exciting our "special wonder" as well as thankfulness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Fashion, Summer

“Here is another example of violating one's nature in the name of nobility, an example that shows the larger dangers of false love. Years ago, I heard Dorothy Day speak. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, her long-term commitment to living among the poor on New York's Lower East Side—not just serving them but sharing their condition—had made her one of my heroes. So it came as a great shock. when in the middle of her talk, I heard her start to ruminate about the "ungrateful poor."
I did not understand how such a dismissive phrase could come from the lips of a saint—until it hit me with the force of a Zen koan. Dorothy Day was saying, "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward."”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), pp. 48-49

Love, Feeling, Understanding, Nature

“There are cynics who deny the existence of human gratitude. But it seems that I am no cynic. So convinced am I of the existence of gratitude that I see in it one of our strongest oppositions. There are millions of persons who receive favors that they forget: but gratitude does exist, and they've got to express it somewhere. They take it out by being grateful to science for all that science has done for them, a gratitude, which, according to their dull perceptions won't cost them anything. So there is economic indignation against anybody who is disagreeable to science. He is trying to rob the people of a cheap gratitude.
I like a bargain as well as does anybody else, but I can't save expenses by being grateful to Science, if for every scientist who has perhaps been of benefit to me, there have been many other scientists who have tried to strangle that possible benefit.”

Charles Fort book Lo!

Pt 1, Ch. 4
Lo! (1931)

People, Science, Personality, Forgetting

“"Oh, I am so glad to see you have come. God the Parent lent a hand to bring you home. You had a hard time, slipping at many places. However, you were joyful. Sah, sah, God the Parent accepts fully, fully. Whatever you ask, it is accepted. God protects you. Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it!"
So saying, Oyasama grasped Rin’s cold hands with both Her own. It was something more than warming them over the brazier. Rin was moved with gratitude and awe at the inexpressible warmth of Oyasama.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

Anecdotes of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, from Anecdote 44, "A Snowy Day," p. 39.
Nakayama's exchange with Masui Rin, upon her arrival at the Nakayama residence during a stormy day.
Anecdotes of Oyasama

God, Home, Parent, Time

“I must stop to lament, that we cannot evince an admiring gratitude towards other excellent things by a like readiness of quotation: that we cannot, for instance, quote a star that we have been watching; or a hue of sunset; or a friend's voice, and his shake of the hand (I had almost said heart); or a beautiful picture—a Claude or Titian, for example.”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"Quotations"
Sketches from Life (1846)

Beauty, Quotes, Star, Heart

“If there is an amateur reader still left in the world — or anybody who just reads and runs — I ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Dedication

Children, Books, World, Way

“I do not have the courage to force myself to search out beautiful prayers in books. There are so many of them it really gives me a headache! and each prayer is more beautiful than the others. I cannot recite them all and not knowing which to choose, I do like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me. For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally, it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

The words in italics were underlined by Thérèse. Source: Story of a Soul (1897), Ch. XI: Those Whom You Have Given Me, 1896–1897 As translated by Fr. John Clarke http://www.ewtn.com/therese/readings/readng6.htm (1976), p. 242.

Love, God, Children, Books

“Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the sovereign arbiter of all human events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy.
Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.”

James K. Polk (1795–1849) American politician, 11th President of the United States (in office from 1845 to 1849)

Fourth Annual Message to Congress (5 December 1848) http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(sj0404)).

God, People, World, Peace

“About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people and as they do so their laugh is musical and their manner is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all.”

David Brooks (1961) American journalist, commentator and editor

[David, Brooks, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html?smid=tw-nytdavidbrooks&seid=auto&_r=0, The Moral Bucket List, New York Times, April 11, 2015]
2010s

Life, People, Music, Feeling

“Earl Grey rose, and said, that the motion of the noble lord had his most entire and full assent…he could not sit silent on the occasion, impressed as he was with feelings of gratitude and admiration towards that great commander who was the subject of this vote, and deriving a just national pride from the consideration, that the honour of the country had been so greatly exalted by the conduct of that distinguished general and his brave army…the apparent contrast, or contradiction, as some might call it, between the sentiments which he had now delivered, and the opinions which he had expressed on former occasions…upon the whole it appeared manifest, that by the most exemplary and patient perseverance under unfavourable circumstances, and at the moment of action by the skilful combination of force and the most determined courage, a great success had been achieved, and as much honour done to the British army as any victory could have accomplished.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1811/apr/26/vote-of-thanks-to-lord-wellington-and in the House of Lords (26 April 1811) on the Vote of Thanks to Lord Wellington, and the British and Portuguese Armies. 1810s

Feeling, Courage, Appearance, Success

“In life, as in love, graceful leave-taking is the epitome of gratitude.”

Yahia Lababidi (1973)

Signposts to Elsewhere (2008)

Love, Life

““Thank you very much, sir,” said Beth with nothing resembling actual gratitude.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Prologue “The Minder” section 5 (p. 10)
The Republic of Thieves (2013)

“I repudiate these attacks on him…a German of the Germans…his honour so assailed. Who made this infamous attack upon our friend? Men who till now have been looked upon as Germans, but who henceforth are unworthy of that name. And these men come from the Reich's working classes, who owe so infinite a debt of gratitude to Krupp!”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Speech at the funeral of Friedrich Alfred Krupp (27 November 1902), quoted in William Manchester, The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968 (London: Michael Joseph, 1968), p. 275
1900s

Men

“He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.”
Qui grate beneficium accipit, primam eius pensionem solvit.

Seneca the Younger Moral Essays

De Beneficiis (On Benefits): Book 2, cap. 22, line 1.
Moral Essays

“The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Die wohlfeilste Art des Stolzes hingegen ist der Nationalstolz. Denn er verrät in dem damit Behafteten den Mangel an individuellen Eigenschaften, auf die er stolz sein könnte, indem er sonst nicht zu dem greifen würde, was er mit so vielen Millionen teilt. Wer bedeutende persönliche Vorzüge besitzt, wird vielmehr die Fehler seiner eigenen Nation, da er sie beständig vor Augen hat, am deutlichsten erkennen. Aber jeder erbärmliche Tropf, der nichts in der Welt hat, darauf er stolz sein könnte, ergreift das letzte Mittel, auf die Nation, der er gerade angehört, stolz zu sein. Hieran erholt er sich und ist nun dankbarlich bereit, alle Fehler und Torheiten, die ihr eigen sind, mit Händen und Füßen zu verteidigen.
Kap. II
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

World, Error, Affliction, Personality

“Live with that faith that your body and your soul do not belong to you. Then God will share the suffering that comes to you. Place your trust in God all the time; in every moment say, “O God, this is Your property, Your duty.” One who was born as a man and has lived as a man will exist in this state. For whatever happens he will say with contentment and gratitude, “All praise belongs to God, al-hamdu lillah.” For what might come in the next moment, he will say, “It is Your responsibility, O Allah, tawakkul-‘alallah,” and praise Him.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

God, Faith, Soul, Suffering

“I am, then, first of all, countryfied, an exile, evidently unlearned, one who is not able to see into the future, but I know for certain, that before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty came and in his mercy raised me up and, indeed, lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for his great favours in this world and for ever, that the mind of man cannot measure.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Confession (c. 452?)

World, Lying, Future

“This bread and wine are the simple but eloquent monument to the infinite love of the Son of God, around which we gather with tender, tearful gratitude, because He loved us'so, and because we know that our garlands of affection and consecration are pleasing to Him.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 371.

Love, God, Tear, Wine

“I’m very disappointed that a national captain, within a few months of retirement, has been retained by another team at a World Cup. I had a lot of respect and gratitude for Mahela’s knowledge but now he’s adviser to a competing team of ours.”

Mahela Jayawardene (1977) Former Sri Lankan cricketer

Thilanga Sumathipala on Mahela being a coaching consultant for England, quoted on The Guardian, "Kumar Sangakkara: England made smart move on mentor Mahela Jayawardene" http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/13/kumar-sangakkara-england-mahela-jayawardene-world-twenty20-sri-lanka, March 13, 2016. About

World, Disappointment, Knowledge

“A wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and — by some sad, strange irony — it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy.”

E.M. Forster book Where Angels Fear to Tread

Source: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), Ch. 7

Love, Life, Happiness, Children

“In grade school they say you have to pick a profession and stick to it… and people stop looking at their lives as a work in progress. If you don't stay in touch with yourself, you kind of lose focus. If you're going to spend a life in the arts, you need to be infused with a sense of gratitude and a sense of wonder. It's a privilege to do this profession. But there is a payment you have to make for that privilege, which is to do your best all the time.”

Ethan Hawke (1970) American actor and writer

Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-hawke7-2010jan07,0,7915056.story (2010-01-07) 2010&ndash;present

Life, People, School, Art

“If my character is flawed by a few minor faults, but is otherwise decent and moral, if you can point out only a few scattered blemishes on an otherwise immaculate surface, if no one can accuse me of greed, or of prurience, or of profligacy, if I live a virtuous life, free of defilement (pardon, for a moment, my self-praise), and if I am to my friends a good friend, my father deserves all the credit… As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude and praise. I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedman's son.”
Atqui si vitiis mediocribus ac mea paucis mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos, si neque avaritiam neque sordes nec mala lustra obiciet vere quisquam mihi, purus et insons, ut me collaudem, si et vivo carus amicis... at hoc nunc laus illi debetur et a me gratia maior. nil me paeniteat sanum patris huius, eoque non, ut magna dolo factum negat esse suo pars, quod non ingenuos habeat clarosque parentis, sic me defendam.

Horace book Satires

Book I, satire vi, lines 65–92
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)

Life, People, Feeling

“No other fame can be compared with that of Jesus. He has a place in the human heart, that no one who ever lived has in any measure rivaled. No name is pronounced with a tone of such love and veneration. All other laurels wither before His. His are ever kept fresh with tears of gratitude.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 60

Love, Tear, Heart

“Every man who becomes heartily and understandingly a channel of the Divine beneficence, is enriched through every league of his life. Perennial satisfaction springs around and within him with perennial verdure. Flowers of gratitude and gladness bloom all along his pathway, and the melodious gurgle of the blessings he bears is echoed back by the melodious waves of the recipient stream.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 26.

Life, Spring, Flowers

“Indeed all people of this country owe a vote of gratitude to the church for what it has done to this country in the course of our civilisation. I urge us to recognise this and offer our thanks to the church for its part in shaping the course of our history.”

Josefa Vosanibola Fijian politician

Speech to the House of Representatives, 12 August 2005

People, History, Parting, Country

“There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil. This is a tribute to those who toil day and night to keep us safe – law enforcement officers, intelligence analysts, homeland security and diplomatic personnel, and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Our nation is blessed to have citizens who volunteer to defend us in this time of danger. I have cherished meeting these selfless patriots and their families. America owes you a debt of gratitude. And to all our men and women in uniform listening tonight: There has been no higher honor than serving as your Commander in Chief.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)

Women, Men, Family, Law

“Senator Joker Arroyo will always be known as among the pioneers and champion of human rights advocacy and a freedom fighter. He defended and handled human rights cases. Together with the freedom-loving Filipinos, we express the gratitude of the Filipino nation for his sacrifices and those of his family members offered to make a better Philippines. We cannot repay his sincerity, courage and fortitude and strength amid challenges he had encountered while serving the parliament of the streets and the halls of Congress and Senate.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2015, October 7). Retrieved from Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10153623885590610/Official 2015, Facebook

Love, Family, Courage, Freedom

“I have discovered a goodness and decency in people as exhibited in all the letters, e-mails, flowers, gifts and prayers that have been directed my way. I am overwhelmed and humbled. I offer you my most sincere thanks and my deep and abiding gratitude. If I ever write my memoirs, I have some spellbinding material. How does the Joni Mitchell song go? "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone"? One thing I've discovered is that I love my job more than I thought I did, and I love my wife even more!”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

"Roger writes to readers" Chicago Sun Times (11 October 2006)

Love, People, Way, Flowers

“Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for 50 generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.”

Uri Avnery (1923–2018) Israeli writer

Muhammad's Sword (September 27, 2006)

People, World, Faith, Feeling

“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Nobel acceptance speech (1986)

Night

“Byron, a man who gave the world a better heart and a new pulse…The man who finds new pulses in the world is the man who will enjoy immortality. Byron was, if anything, a sower of new seed that had a great germinal force…Byron found the eyes of the people sealed, and opened them, and for that reason the gratitude of the nation should be given to him.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Byron centenary luncheon (29 April 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 123-124.
1924

People, World, Heart

“Nobody seeks my help with a petition or offers an excuse that is more pressing than he, reminding me of a favor I did him so that it would be followed by its sister (i. e, one like it) and so good would be done to its asker because withholding of later things removes gratitude for earlier ones.”

Al-Mahdi (744–785) the third Abbasid Caliph

History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 29, p. 257/258

Sister, Help

“[T]he magician emerges from bed and we recount our tale. Her response lacks gratitude: stammering furiously, she chides us for the damage to her lawns and flowerbed. The boy is smacked; I am Spasmed; we both spend the day with nail-clippers attending to the damage to the garden.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

After Bartimaeus and 'the boy' defeat enemies entering the yard.
The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal

Boy

“Much more definitive and much more lasting than all the gold that one can accumulate is the gratitude of a people.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

People

“Hsueh Pan was a living example [of the] common saying, "To covet the land of Shu after grabbing the region of Lung." After having gratified his passion for Cassia, he began to turn his attention to her maid Cherry, who was by no means unattractive. The maid was willing enough but, knowing her mistress well, was afraid to encourage him. […] Later at bedtime, Cassia made a pretense of not caring where he spent the night. "Go where your heart is," she said to him with a playful push. "I don't want to see you starve your heart out."”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

[...] To show his gratitude, Hsueh Pan performed his conjugal duty to the best of his ability that night.
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), pp. 273–274

Passion, Heart, Night

“St. Paul says, that God commendeth his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: and that when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. St. Paul was in a peculiar manner a child of grace: with gratitude, therefore, he honours and extols its efficacy in all his epistles; and particularly in his epistle to the Romans throughout he defends his doctrines with great precision and copiousness. 'Every mouth,' says he, 'must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. By the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified. Man must be justified freely by his grace. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

De causa Dei contra Pelagium

Love, Death, God, World

“Goya in gratitude to his friend Arrieta for the skill and great care with which he saved his [Goya's] life in his acute and dangerous illness, suffered at the end of 1819, at the age of seventy-tree years. He painted this in 1820.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

inscription by Goya, 1820
Goya painted this long inscription in 1820, - in the tradition of the ex-votos in the churches - in the double-portrait, [of his friend, and of Goya himself as the patient], he made of his doctor Eugenio Garciá Arrieta who helped him in 1819 with a severe illness
1820s

Life, Age, Tree, Suffering

“Doctors, lawyers and even accountants have always understood that they would have to stand firm, functioning as a solid group protecting its own expertise and hence its earning capacity, from the tendency of all merchants to buy cheap and sell dear. They made of their special knowledge a rare and valuable commodity, insisted on a mystique and protected each other by an immovable professional code. They were cynical enough to know that if they were once cast in the role of public martyrs, working harder and more generously than most other groups of workers, they would be left with nothing but masochism, exhaustion and despair to show for it. Like successful trade unions, who have always worked on the principle that the job is worth whatever you can force the employer to pay for it and not a penny more or less, they understood that nobody was going to pay them their fees out of gratitude, that if they left it to the man whose life they had saved to pay them what he thought fit, they would wind up with half an old penny.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

"'Unhelpful to the workers' cause'" [undated], p. 175
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)

Life, Knowledge, Success, Despair

“When you think of the silly things people have said to you which have stopped you from saying the same silly things, you simply can’t do justice to your gratitude.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 107

People, Justice, Thinking

“There is much to weep about. But it is a sin to permit our tears to drown out our song of gratitude and joy in the gift of creation.”

Richard John Neuhaus (1936–2009) Canadian-American Christian writer

"Wild Moralists in the Animal Kingdom" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/04/wild-moralists-in-the-animal-kingdom, in First Things (April 2003).

Tear, Joy

“Once again, I experienced that overwhelming joy in the universe that I had felt in London outside the V and A. But this time, my consciousness of the world seemed larger, more complex. It was the mystic's sensation of oneness, of everything blending into everything else. Everything I looked at reminded me of something else, which also became present to my consciousness, as if I were simultaneously seeing a million worlds and smelling a million scents and hearing a million sounds-- not mixed up, but each separate and clear. I was overwhelmed with a sense of my smallness in the face of this vast, beautiful, objective universe, this universe whose chief miracle is that it exists, as well as myself. It is no dream, but a great garden in which life is trying to obtain a foothold. I experienced a desire to burst into tears of gratitude; then I controlled it, and the feeling subsided into a calm sense of immense, infinite beauty.”

Colin Wilson book The Philosopher's Stone

Source: The Philosopher's Stone (1969), p. 237-238

Life, World, Beauty, Dreams

“Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

Ode for Music http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=ocmu (1769), V, line 8

Music, Bee

“I besought Him to give me some work for Him, as an outlet for love and gratitude; some self-denying service, no matter what it might be, however trying or however trivial”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book One: Barbarians at the Gates. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1981, 354).

Love

“But despite this selfless service—of these two officers and countless others like them across the country—in some American communities, people view the police not as allies, but as antagonists, and think of them not with respect or gratitude, but with suspicion and distrust.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

People, Communication, Thinking, Country

“As we live by the Muses, it is but a Gratitude in us to encourage Poetical Merit wherever we find it. The Muses, contrary to all other Ladies, pay no Distinction to Dress, and never partially mistake the Pertness of Embroidery for Wit, nor the Modesty of Want for Dulness. Be the Author who he will, we push his Play as far as it will go. So (though you are in Want) I wish you success heartily.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

"Player", Introduction
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Success

“The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire to receive even greater benefits.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

La reconnaissance de la plupart des hommes n'est qu'une secrète envie de recevoir de plus grands bienfaits.
Variant translation: Gratitude is the lively expectation of favours yet to come.
Maxim 298. Compare: "The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours", attributed to Sir Robert Walpole.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Men, Secret

“Our endeavours have also been sustained by the activities of strong and principled women all over the world who have campaigned not only for my own release but, more importantly, for our cause. I cannot let this opportunity pass without speaking of the gratitude we feel towards our sisters everywhere, from heads of government to busy housewives. Their efforts have been a triumphant demonstration of female solidarity and of the power of an ideal to cross all frontiers.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)

Women, World, Feeling, Business

“Gratitude is what we are without a story.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

“Up climb’d the sweet pea,
The butterfly of flowers:—I love it not,
Though every hue—and it has many tints—
Are dyed as if the sunset evening clouds
Had fallen to the earth in sudden rain,
And left their colours : purple, delicate pink,
And snowy white, are on thy wing-like leaves;
But thou art all too forward in thy bloom;
Thy blossoms are the sun’s, and cling to all
That can support them into open day:
And then they die, leaving no root behind,
The hope and promise of another spring;
And no perfume, whose lingering gratitude
Remains round what upheld its summer’s life.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Last of the St. Aubyns
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Love, Life, Hope, Art

“The immemorial ingratitude of rulers and commonwealths is proverbial. Especially common is ingratitude to Israel — the People that has achieved so much of eternal worth, but has rarely succeeded in winning gratitude.”

Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946) British rabbi

Exodus I, 8 (p. 206)
The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (one-volume edition, 1937, ISBN 0-900689-21-8

People

“The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)

History

“My teacher, Ales Adamovich, whose name I mention today with gratitude, felt that writing prose about the nightmares of the 20th century was sacrilege. Nothing may be invented. You must give the truth as it is. A "super-literature" is required. The witness must speak. Nietzsche's words come to mind – no artist can live up to reality. He can't lift it. It always troubled me that the truth doesn't fit into one heart, into one mind, that truth is somehow splintered. There's a lot of it, it is varied, and it is strewn about the world.”

Svetlana Alexievich (1948) Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer

Quotes from Nobel Lecture

Truth, World, Literature, Reality

“Since I have a deep sense of responsibility for the life my pictures will lead out in the world, I will with gratitude accept any form of their exposition in which their life and meaning can be maintained, and avoid all occasions where I think that this cannot be done.... unfortunately, there are few existing alternatives for the kind of activity which your museum represents. Nevertheless, in my own life at least, there must be some congruity between convictions and actions if I am to continue to function and work.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

Quote from Rothko's letter to Whitney's director Lloyd Goodrich, End of 1952; as cited in Mark Rothko, a biography, James E. B. Breslin, University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 304
Rothko was turning down a museum purchase
1950's

Life, World, Thinking, Sense

“Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks on the death of Osama bin Laden, May 5, 2011, The Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2011 http://web.archive.org/web/20110505081437/http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-death-obama-george-w-bush.html, 2010s, 2011

Love, Women, Men, People

“My feelings, gratitude, for instance, are denied me simply because of my social position.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Devil (Ivan's Nightmare)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Feeling

“[the foreign Muslims (or Turks)] “alone are capable of virtue, kindness, generosity, valour, good deed, good works, truthfulness, keeping of promises… loyalty, clarity of vision, justice, equity, recognition of rights, gratitude for favours and fear of God. They are, consequently, said to be noble, free born, virtuous, religious, of high pedigree and pure birth. These groups, alone are worthy of offices and posts in the government… Owing to their actions the government of the king is strengthened and adorned.” [On the other hand the] “low-born” (Indian) Muslims are capable only of vices - immodesty, falsehood, miserliness, misappropriation, wrongfulness, lies, evil-speaking ingratitude,…shamelessness, impundence… [So they are called] low-born, bazaar people, base, mean, worthless, plebian, shameless and of dirty birth”.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they. Chapter 2.
Fatawa-i-Jahandari

God, People, Truth, Fear

“Devotion as an expression of gratitude to God can turn into a social force and bring about transformative changes in all aspects of human life and at all levels of society.”

Pandurang Shastri Athavale (1920–2003) Indian philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer

Acceptance speech while receiving the 1997 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, from HRH Prince Philip at a public ceremony held in Westminster Abbey, May 6, 1997. Source: Leader of Spiritual Movement Wins $1.2 Million Religion Prize http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9902E3DB1230F935A35750C0A961958260 New York Times, March 6, 1997.

Life, God, Change

“The honourable gentleman has alluded to the distresses and financial embarrassments of the country. I should be the last man to speak of those distresses in a slighting manner; but in considering the amount of our burdens, we ought not to forget under what circumstances those difficulties have been incurred. Engaged in an arduous struggle, single-handed and unaided, not only against all the powers of Europe, but with the confederated forces of the civilized world, our object was not merely military glory—not the temptation of territorial acquisition—not even what might be considered a more justifiable object, the assertion of violated rights and the vindication of national honour; but we were contending for our very existence as an independent nation. When the political horizon was thus clouded, when no human foresight could point out from what quarter relief was to be expected, when the utmost effort of national energy was not to despair, I would put to the honourable gentleman whether, if at that period it could have been shown that Europe might be delivered from its thraldom, but that this contingent must be purchased at the price of a long and patient endurance of our domestic burdens, we should not have accepted the conditions with gratitude? I lament as deeply as the honourable gentleman the burdens of the country; but it should be recollected that they were the price which we bad agreed to pay for our freedom and independence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (16 May 1820), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 15-16.
1820s

World, Effort, Freedom, Despair

“The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear.”

Charles James Napier (1782–1853) Commander-in-Chief in British India

Farwell, Byron: Queen Victoria's Little Wars, p. 27-31

Fear

“Those of us born after that era (of World War II), or with little or no knowledge of those experiences, take freedom for granted. In fact, we give little thought because we are preoccupied with the here and now and yet we owe a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid because you (returned servicemen) paid the price in blood.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Poppy Drive speech, 21 October 2005.

War, World, Knowledge, Freedom

“But we should see gratitude in the whole context of life, and ask ourselves that life is changed and empowered by it.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011)

Life, Change

“When a peasant gives me his bit of cheese he's making me a bigger present than the Prince of Làscari when he invites me to dinner. That's obvious. The difficulty is that the cheese is nauseating. So all that remains is the heart's gratitude which can't be seen and the nose wrinkled in disgust which can be seen only too well.”

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa book The Leopard

Un contadino che mi dà il suo pezzo di pecorino mi fa un regalo più grande di Giulio Làscari quando m’invita a pranzo. Il guaio è che il pecorino mi dà la nausea; e così non resta che la gratitudine che non si vede e il naso arricciato dal disgusto che si vede fin troppo.
Page 144
Il Gattopardo (1958)

Heart

“There are people who worship Allah to gain His Favors, this is the worship of traders; while there are some who worship Him to keep themselves free from His Wrath, this is the worship of slaves; a few who obey Him out' of their sense of gratitude and obligations, this is the worship of free and noble men.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Men, People, Sense

“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

The earliest attributions of this yet found are to it being a saying of William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell, in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 it began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907. It seems to only recently to have begun to be attributed to Sallust, on the internet.
Misattributed

Forgetting