30 Famous Thanksgiving Sayings and Quotes

Here is a handpicked collection of the most famous Thanksgiving sayings and phrases to be used on Thanksgiving day. Make your Thanksgiving wishes stand out by using some of these thanksgiving quotes on your cards, messages and even while wishing verbally. Use them wisely.

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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

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for – annually, not oftener – if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.  Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments.  ~Mark Twain

Sometime we complain that God put thorns on Roses. Yet others will rather say that God is good to have placed Roses among the thorns. In both cases we shall however be thankful for the roses. ~Kurt Avish

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

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.  ~W.J. Cameron

It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.  ~Alistair Cooke

Be aware of what you have in hand rather than to be for what you don’t. Everyone will be grateful to what you have.” ~Tewin Sham

On Thanksgiving Day, all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment – halftime.  ~PopularSayings.net

Coexistence:  What the farmer does with the turkey – until Thanksgiving.  ~Mike Connolly

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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 nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for his goodness.  ~Robert Casper Lintne

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.  ~Aesop

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 what I give, not what I take,
For battle, not for victory,
My prayer of thanks I make. ~Odell Shepard

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