Thanksgiving is a day when many of us pause to give thanks for what we have. Sometimes our lives are so filled with good fortune that it comes easy, our blessings abound and the list of gratitudes could fill volumes. At other times, life’s challenges can cast a long shadow–the loss of a loved one, emotional upheavals, a faltering business, a failed relationship, a dashed dream, illnesses, and financial troubles can all make good fortune harder to find than the the horizon on a starless night.
I could tell you that’s it’s going to be ok, but I don’t know that. Many things in life don’t turn out ok. I could suggest that you look harder for those things you should be grateful for, but you’ve already done that. Or I could say that it can always be worse, but that doesn’t make whatever “this” is any better, and maybe this really is as bad as it gets.
Instead what I’d suggest is something else altogether. It’s when things are at their worst that we most need to take the focus off of ourselves, and our circumstances, and instead shift it to giving someone else a reason to be thankful and grateful; literally “giving thanks.”
No matter what’s going on in your life, you still have the power to lift someone else up, not with the intention to make yourself feel better or with the expectation of anything in return, but solely with the purpose of giving them a reason to be thankful for the gift of being acknowledged as someone who has worth and value.
Few things are as infinite as our capacity to do that. It costs nothing, gives something priceless, and often it’s the greatest gift we have to give.
In that spirit here are 30 quotes to inspire you to to “give thanks.”
- “No one has ever become poor by giving.” – Anne Frank
- “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” – Charles Dickens
- “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” – John Holmes
- “One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.” – Gordon B. Hinckley
- “Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.” – Horace Mann
- “Give, but give until it hurts.” – Mother Teresa
- “If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.” – Warren Buffett
- “Strong people don’t put others down… They lift them up.” – Michael P. Watson
- “If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. Your life will become better by making other lives better.” – Will Smith
- “I’m starting to think this world is just a place for us to learn that we need each other more than we want to admit.” – Richelle E. Goodrich
- “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” – Booker T. Washington
- “A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.” – Daniel Wallace
- “Sometimes those who give the most are the ones with the least to spare.” – Mike McIntyre
- “Remember this. Hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting meaning. This is why we’re here. To make each other feel safe.” – Andre Agassi
- “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” – Napoleon Hill
- “There is a false saying: “How can someone who can’t save himself save others?” Supposing I have the key to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?” – Friedrich Nietzsche
- “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” – John Bunyan
- “The most sincere form of kindness is not to show off our greatness but to help another discover their own.” – Charles F. Glassman
- “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
- “To do more for the world than the world does for you, that is success.” – Henry Ford
- “To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” – Mohammed Ali
- We only have what we give.” – Isabel Allende
- “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” – Maya Angelou
- “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains is immortal.” –Albert Pine
- “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein
- “Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.” – Gretta Brooker Palmer
- “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” –John Holmes
- “What I spent I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have.” – Henry Ward Beecher