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is therefore recommended ... to set apart Thursday the
eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and
praise, that with one heart and one voice the good people
may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and
consecrate themselves to the service of their divine
benefactor ...
Samuel
Adams
November
1, 1777 (adopted by the 13 states
as the first official Thanksgiving Proclamation) |
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Thanksgiving
Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest people;
but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the
gratitude.
E.P. Powell
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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 |
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Thanksgiving,
after all, is a word of action.
W.J.
Cameron
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Thanksgiving
Day comes, by statute, once a year;
to the honest person it comes as frequently
as the heart of gratitude will allow
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Edward
Sandford Martin
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Thanksgiving
is the holiday of
peace, the celebration of work
and the simple
life. . .
a true
folk-festival that speaks the
poetry of the turn of the
seasons,
the beauty of seedtime and
harvest, the ripe product of
the year--and the deep, deep
connection of all these
things with God.
Ray
Stannard Baker
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On
Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence.
William
Jennings Bryan
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For,
after all, put it as we may to ourselves, we are all of us from
birth to death
guests at a table which we did not spread. The sun, the earth,
love, friends,
our very breath are parts of the banquet.... Shall we think of the
day as a chance
to come nearer to our Host, and to find out something of Him who has
fed us so long?
Rebecca
Harding Davis
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The
Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts.
No Americans have been more impoverished than these who,
nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.
H.U.
Westermayer |
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| It
is the duty of nations as well as of people to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess
their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with
assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and
pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the
Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those
nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
We know
that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are
subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world.
May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war
which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted
upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our
national reformation as a whole people?
We have
been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we
have been preserved these many years in peace and
prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no
other nation has ever grown.
But we have
forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which
preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and
strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the
deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were
produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too
self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and
preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
It has
seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly,
reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart
and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore
invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United
States, and also those who are at sea and those who are
sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the
last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and
praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens.
Abraham
Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863 |
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How
wonderful it would be if we could help our children and
grandchildren
to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors.
It changes a child's personality. A child is resentful,
negative—or thankful.
Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw
people.
Sir
John Templeton |
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We
celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of America,
maybe in different ways and for different reasons
Despite everything that's happened to us since we fed the Pilgrims,
we still have our language, our culture, our distinct social system.
Even in a nuclear age, we still have a tribal people."
Wilma
Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee nation |
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The
unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart
sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will
find,
in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry
Ward Beecher |
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The
more I focused on lack and on what I couldn’t have, the more
depressed I became.
The more depressed I became, the more I focused on lack.
My soul whispered that
what I really yearned for was not financial security but financial
serenity.
I was still—quiet enough to listen.
At that moment I acknowledged the deep longing in my heart.
What I hungered for was an inner peace that the world could not take
away.
I asked for help
and committed to following wheresoever Spirit would lead me.
For the first time in my life
I discarded my five-year goals and became a seeker, a pilgrim, a
sojourner.
When I surrendered my desire for security and sought serenity
instead, I looked at my life
with open eyes.
I saw that I had much for which to be grateful.
I felt humbled by my riches
and regretted that I took for granted the abundance that already
existed in my life.
How could I expect more from the universe when I didn’t appreciate
what I already had?
Sarah Ban Breathnach |
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Be
grateful simply for being alive.
When you are grateful for life, pure and simple, your
life becomes one you can be grateful for.
That may strike you as circular or even backward
logic, but your attitude really does have an effect on how
things work out.
When you can’t change your life any other way, you
can still change your attitude.
When you do, your life changes.
You find more chances to love, and you will be
surprised to see how much more love is returned to you.
Bernie Siegel |
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Gratitude
consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our
state,
and to the multitude of God’s gifts, taken one by one.
It fills us with a consciousness
that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and
smallest need of life.
It is a blessed thought that from our childhood God has been laying
his fatherly hands upon us,
and always in benediction, and that even the strokes of his hands
are blessings,
and among the chiefest we have ever received.
Henry Edward Manning |
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Whatever
our individual troubles and challenges may be, it’s important to
pause
every now and then to appreciate all that we have, on every level.
We need to literally “count our blessings,” give thanks for
them,
allow ourselves to enjoy them, and relish the experience of
prosperity we already have.
Shakti Gawain |
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The private and personal blessings we enjoy, the
blessings
of immunity, safeguard, liberty, and integrity,
deserve the thanksgiving of a whole life.
Jeremy Taylor |
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I
remember taking a little time in each year to think about my life
and make
a long list of the people and things I was grateful for.
Thanksgiving for me
really was a time of being thankful. I think it is great for
people of all ages
to celebrate the day with good people, good food, and football, but
I hope in
the midst of our busy lives we have not forgotten the importance of
observing
the real reason for the holiday: to give thanksgiving.
Matthias
Reightman |
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My Thanksgiving (excerpt)
Don Henley
. . . Now the trouble with you and me, my friend
Is the trouble with this nation
Too many blessings, too little appreciation
And I know that kind of notion--well, it just ain't cool
So send me back to Sunday school
Because I'm tired of waiting for reason to arrive
It's too long we've been living
These unexamined lives
I've got great expectations
I've got family and friends
I've got satisfying work
I've got a back that bends
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving. . . .
Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
In learning how to give love, and how to receive it
And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege
Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge
And I don't mind saying that I still love it all
I wallowed in the springtime
Now I'm welcoming the fall
For every moment of joy
Every hour of fear
For every winding road that brought me here
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving
For everyone who helped me start
And for everything that broke my heart
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving.
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When we sit down
to Thanksgiving dinner, I will be grateful
that a turkey gave its
life--however unwillingly or ignorantly--
so that we might eat and
thus stay alive. I'll be thankful
to the people who raised
the turkeys, who grew the corn,
who canned the cranberry sauce,
who grew the wheat
from which the dinner rolls are made.
tom walsh |
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