101 Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes for a Positive, Fun and Grateful Holiday

Thanksgiving will soon be here.

A time for spending quality time with the people closest to us. For sharing laughs and (too) big meals.

And for putting an extra focus on what truly matters in life and on  the gratitude we can feel for both the small and bigger things.

To help you with that and to help you to get into the spirit of the holiday I’d like to share 101 of the most inspirational Thanksgiving quotes in today’s post.

I hope you’ll find something helpful here, for yourself and for your loved ones. For this Thanksgiving and but also for the rest of your year.

Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes

“Thanksgiving reminds us that no matter what befalls us in life, we can take the charred remnants and we can reconstruct a life unimaginably richer than that from which the shards and pieces fell.”
– Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are.”
– Joyce Giraud

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”
– Henri Frederic Amiel

“Thanksgiving is a time to give, a time to love, and a time to reflect on the things that matter most in life.”
– Danielle Duckery

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”
– Cicero

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.”
– Melody Beattie

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
– Maya Angelou

“Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness and gratitude.”
– Nigel Hamilton

“The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.”
– Douglas Wood

“Appreciation can change a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.”
– Margaret Cousins

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
– Marcel Proust

“The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.”
– W. Clement Stone

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
– William Blake

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.”
– Dalai Lama

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What I love about Thanksgiving is that it’s purely about getting together with friends or family and enjoying food. It’s really for everybody, and it doesn’t matter where you’re from.”
– Daniel Humm

“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation.”
– Dalai Lama

“Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine’s Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.”
– Jonathan Safran Foer

“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.”
– H.A. Ironside

“Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season, and represents food, family and moments of sharing and professing gratitude.”
– Sarah Moore

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

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

“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.”
– Will Arnett

Positive and Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes

“If you made a list of all the things you could be thankful for, the list would undoubtedly be longer than your misfortunes.”
– Catherine Pulsifer

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
– William Arthur Ward

“In life, one has a choice to take one of two paths: to wait for some special day – or to celebrate each special day.”
– Rasheed Ogunlaru

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
– Willie Nelson

“Thanksgiving is a joyous invitation to shower the world with love and gratitude.”
– Amy Leigh Mercree

“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot.”
– Hausa Proverb

“The more you thank life, the more life gives you to be thankful for.”
– Zig Ziglar

“Be thankful for what you have. Your life is someone else’s fairy tale.”
– Wale Ayeni

“What if today, we were just grateful for everything?”
– Charlie Brown

“Thanksgiving creates abundance.”
– Ann Voskamp

“There is always something to be thankful for.”
– Charles Dickens

“When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.”
– Kristin Armstrong

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Aesop

“When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty, my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.”
– Sam Lefkowit

“The struggle ends when gratitude begins.”
– Neale Donald Walsch

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
– Voltaire

“There is always, always something to be thankful for.”
– Unknown

“Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings.”
– Marvin J. Ashton

“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“The real gift of gratitude is that the more grateful you are, the more present you become.”
– Robert Holden

“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

“What seems insignificant when you have it, is important when you need it.”
– Franz Grillparzer

“The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.”
– James E. Faust

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch

“True thanksgiving means that we need to thank God for what He has done for us, and not to tell Him what we have done for Him.”
– George R. Hendrick

Funny and Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes

“Thanksgiving, the day where there’s never enough food. You can’t just have a turkey. No, there has to be a roast beef or a ham too. Or both. It’s the only day we have mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.”
– Lewis Black

“The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.”
– Jay McInerney

“The average time for eating a Thanksgiving dinner is 12 minutes, which, incidentally, coincides with halftime.”
– Erma Bombeck

“If you think about a Thanksgiving dinner, it’s really like making a large chicken.”
– Ina Garten

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

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

“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
– Erma Bombeck

“An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.”
– Irv Kupcinet

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
– Jim Davis

“Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! It’s the day you forget about all the fighting and division in the world and just focus on all the fighting and division in your family.”
– Jimmy Fallon

“The turkey. The sweet potatoes. The stuffing. The pumpkin pie. Is there anything else we all can agree so vehemently about?”
– Nora Ephron

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”
– Kevin James

“Thanksgiving: when the people who are the most thankful are the ones who didn’t have to cook.”
– Melanie White

“Thanksgiving just gets me all warm and tingly and all kinds of wonderful inside.”
– Willard Scott

“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

“What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets.”
– Erma Bombeck

Short and Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes

“I love Thanksgiving because it’s a holiday that is centered around food and family.”
– Marcus Samuelsson

“Thanksgiving creates abundance.”
– Michael Beckwith

“Thanksgiving is the meal we aspire for other meals to resemble.”
– Jonathan Safran Foer

“Gratitude is the best attitude.”
– Unknown

“Grace isn’t a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It’s a way to live.”
– Jackie Windspear

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”
– Oscar Wilde

“True gratitude is the ability to humbly say thanks in advance.”
– Rosemarie Rossetti

“Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”
– C.S. Lewis

“A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness.”
– James E. Faust

“Reflect upon your present blessings.”
– Charles Dickens

“Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”
– Rumi

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton

“A moment of gratitude makes a difference in your attitude.”
– Bruce Wilkinson

“Thankfulness creates gratitude which generates contentment that causes peace.”
– Todd Stocker

“No gesture is too small when done with gratitude.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”
– Paulo Coelho

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.”
– Native American Proverb

“Life is better when you’re thankful.”
– Joyce Meyer

“Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.”
– William Shakespeare

“Good mashed potato is one of the great luxuries of life.”
– Lindsey Bareham

“Kindness is always fashionable.”
– Amelia Barr

“Gratitude changes everything.”
– Marian Wright Edelman

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
– Randy Pausch

“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness.”
– Amy Collette

“There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.”
– Helen Keller

“Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say.”
– Alice Walker

“The most thankful person is the most fully human.”
– John Henry Jowett

Want more inspiration for the holiday season? Have a look at these top 30 Thanksgiving quotes and the 100 short Thanksgiving captions in this post. Plus, the 101 inspirational Christmas quotes here and the short Christmas quotes in this post.