“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”-Aesop
“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.”-Zig Ziglar
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”-Marcus Tullius Cicero
“It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.”-Eckhart Tolle
“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.”-Dalai Lama
“A wise person thinks like this: “I have only a short time to live. Within this time I must prepare myself for eternity. The way I live in the next two years will be the model for my eternal life.” Then explode your sense of love. Love God, and love another person as God. For an entire day, 24 hours, pour out your entire energy for someone. If you love a person like this, even though you may die early, you will have made the highest accomplishment in all eternity. Then when God gives you more time to live, your response will be immense gratitude. Push yourself to live more fully. The person who expects death and then is given life dwells in the fullest gratitude.” –Sun Myung Moon
“Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself…”-Rumi
“I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.”-Helen Keller
“Real life isn’t always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgement of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties.”-Sara Ban Breathnach
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity… It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”-Melody Beattie
Make an A to Z list of what you are grateful for
It’s easy to find things to complain about. It’s easy to take a lot of good things for granted. But complaining and taking things for granted are just habits and habits can be broken, and new habits can replace the old ones. One way of creating a habit of being grateful is to make an A to Z list of all the things you are grateful for right now in this moment. Then each day try to add at least one more new item to your list.
Don’t limit yourself. Anything can go on your list: people, places, things, natural or man made, emotions, thoughts, words…whatever you sincerely appreciate. By creating a practice like this you are retraining yourself to see the world and your life differently.
