85 Best Thanksgiving Quotes to Express Gratitude and Thanks

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Best Thanksgiving quotes

1. “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. “We ought to make the moments notes Of happy glad Thanksgiving; The hours and days, a silent praise Of music we are living.” —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

3. “I am grateful for what I am and have.” —Henry David Thoreau

4. “The observance of Thanksgiving Day—as a function—has become general of late years. The Thankfulness is not so general. This is natural. Two-thirds of the nation have always had hard luck and a hard time during the year, and this has a calming effect upon their enthusiasm.” —Mark Twain

5. “When thanksgiving is filled with true meaning and is not just the formality of a polite ‘thank you,’ it is the recognition of dependence.” —Billy Graham

6. “The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves.” —David Steindl-Rast

7. “A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God. It prevails with Him unspeakably.” —John Bunyan

8. “What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?” —Erma Bombeck

9. “Thanksgiving day, I fear, If one the solemn truth must touch, Is celebrated, not so much To thank the Lord for blessing o’er, As for the sake of getting more!” —Will Carleton

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

11. “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

12.  “Thanksgiving Day—Let all give humble, hearty and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys, they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.” —Mark Twain

13. “My mother is a great hunter—she usually shoots our Thanksgiving turkey.” —Kirsten Gillibrand

14. “Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day.” —Ronald Reagan

15. “Detente—isn’t that what a farmer has with his turkey—until Thanksgiving?” —Ronald Reagan

16. “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

17. “Many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge.” —Judith Martin

18. “I hated cranberry sauce, but for some reason my mom persisted in her lifelong belief that it was my very favorite food, even though every single Thanksgiving I politely declined to include it on my plate.” —John Green

19. “Invariably at the last minute somebody in the family unearthed a big bore who of course had no friends, no other place to go for Thanksgiving.” —Betty MacDonald

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Thanksgiving quotes from TV shows and films

22. “You can’t have Thanksgiving without turkey. That’s like the Fourth of July without apple pie or Friday with no two pizzas.” —Joey Tribbiani, Friends

23. “My father was a stern man. He forbade us to participate in any activities that he thought were associated with the common man….The Thanksgiving Day Parade was first on the list.” —Elaine Benes, Seinfeld

24. “Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. That’s the day people celebrate with food by eating as much of it as possible.” —Garfield, Garfield’s Thanksgiving

25. “What is Thanksgiving without a side of drama? And pie. Apple or pumpkin?” —Blair Waldorf, Gossip Girl

26. “It’s not yet Thanksgiving and we’re enjoying our lovely fall weather.” —Mr. Gufaston, Grumpy Old Men

27. “When a nice boy who adores you offers you pie, say ‘Thank you.’” —William, This Is Us

28. “Thanksgiving is *cookies*! Thanksgiving is pie-filling! Thanksgiving is *coleslaw*!” —Garfield, Garfield’s Thanksgiving

29. “It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a little emotional scarring.” —Timothy Burke, Friends

30. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go baste the turkey and hide the kitchen knives.” —Mrs. Pascal, The House of Yes

31. “OK, who wants white meat? Scratch that, we have dark meat or really dark meat.” —Danny Tanner, Full House

32. “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” —Mr. Carlson, WKRP in Cincinnati

33. “When you two are done using that turkey as a courtship device, can you put it in the oven?” —Kurt Hummel, Glee

34. “Oh, I should be thankful for the wonderful fall we’ve been having.” —Joey Tribbiani, Friends

35. “I used to always have Thanksgiving with Hannah, and I never thought that I could love anybody else. And here it is, years later, and I’m married to you and completely in love with you. The heart is a very, very resilient little muscle, it really is.” —Mickey, Hannah and Her Sisters

36. “Do you know what I dream about when I dream about Thanksgiving, which is often? I dream about eating so much deliciousness that all the blood rushes to my stomach and I pass out at the table. Please don’t deny me that.” —Seth Cohen, The O.C.

37. “Well, that was absurd. Let’s eat dead bird!” —Tommy Larson, Home for the Holidays

38. “I swear to you, this will be your most memorable Thanksgiving, the one that you’ll want the rest of your life. The one that you say ‘Man, it was never as good as that night.’ So let this night be great.” —George Simmons, Funny People

39. “I can’t cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast.” —Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

40. “But we have to stay home. Thanksgiving’s not Thanksgiving without Frugal Hoosier canned corn, Safeway boxed stuffing, and CVS pumpkin pie.” —Sue Heck, Thanksgiving VI

41. “Better Thanksgiving than never.” —Dan Humphrey, Gossip Girl

42. “Every year I try and tell you guys that no one really sings Thanksgiving songs.” —Bob Belcher, Bob’s Burger

43. “I’m sorry. Did you just say Canadian Thanksgiving was, and I’m quoting, “the real Thanksgiving”? What do Canadians even have to celebrate about?”—Barney, How I Met Your Mother

44. “Never too early to plan ahead, especially when it comes to matters of the tum.” —Dev Shah, Master of None

45. “Have you noticed that you’re the only practicing heterosexual at your Thanksgiving dinner?” —Rodney Fraser, The Object of My Affection

46. “Here I am, 5 o’clock in the morning, stuffing bread crumbs up a dead bird’s butt.” —Roseanne Conner, Roseanne

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Thanksgiving quotes about gratitude

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

51. “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” —William Arthur Ward

52. “Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

53. “When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? No—here’s to the pilot that weathered the storm.” —George Canning

54. “On the recollection of so many and great favours and blessings, I now, with a high sense of gratitude, presume to offer up my sincere thanks to the Almighty, the Creator and Preserver.” —William Bartram

55. “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” —Melody Beattie

56. “Without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is mercy, and whose great attribute is benevolence to all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.” —Charles Dickens

57. “There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude…we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.” —Montesquieu

58. “Much more definitive and much more lasting than all the gold that one can accumulate is the gratitude of a people.” —Che Guevara

59. “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” —G. K. Chesterton

60. “A kindly gesture bestowed by us on an animal arouses prodigies of understanding and gratitude.” —Colette

61. “Here’s the gift of gratitude: In order to feel it, your ego has to take a backseat. What shows up in its place is greater compassion and understanding. Instead of being frustrated, you choose appreciation. And the more grateful you become, the more you have to be grateful for.” —Oprah Winfrey

62. “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.” —Carl Jung

63. “He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.” —Seneca the Younger

64. “Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead.” —C.S. Lewis

65. “Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion.” —Joseph Alsop

66. “There is no better excess in the world than the excess of gratitude.” —Jean de La Bruyère

67. “Gratitude is a lifestyle. A hard-fought, grace-infused, biblical lifestyle.” —Nancy Leigh DeMoss

68. “My day begins with gratitude and joy. I look forward with enthusiasm to the adventures of the day, knowing that in my life, All is good.” —Louise Hay

69. “Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it.” —Edward Wood

70. “Develop an ‘attitude of gratitude.’ Say thank you to everyone you meet for everything they do for you.” —Brian Tracy

71. “The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.” —Henri Nouwen

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Thanksgiving quotes about family

72. “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

73. “You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” —Desmond Tutu

74. “The family is our refuge and our springboard; nourished on it, we can advance to new horizons. In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.” —Alex Haley

75. “Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.” —André Maurois

76. “The family is the association established by nature for the supply of man’s everyday wants.” —Aristotle

77. “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known.” —Thomas Jefferson

78. “The family that prays together stays together, and if they stay together they will love one another as God has loved each one of them. And works of love are always works of peace.” —Mother Teresa

79. “Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life.” —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

80. “I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world.” —Louise May Alcott, Little Women

81. “The family—that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.” —Dodie Smith, Dear Octopus

82. “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” —Jane Howard

83. “The family we choose for ourselves is more important than the one we were born into; that people have to earn our respect and trust, not have it handed to them simply because of genetics.” —Charles de Lint

84. “The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.” —G. K. Chesterton

85. “I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family. We were a family that would have killed for each other – and we still are.” —Richard Branson

Add a bit of humor to the season with funny Thanksgiving quotes, too.

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece on Thanksgiving quotes, Kelly Kuehn tapped her experience as a lifestyle editor to ensure that all information is accurate. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.