99 Happy Thanksgiving Quotes to Share in Holiday Messages and Toasts
Share warm, inspirational, and funny Thanksgiving quotes with family and friends this year.
We don’t know how November flew by so fast. Nonetheless, here we are and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Perhaps you are writing a Thanksgiving Instagram caption . Or, you plan to say a few words for a toast when you gather ’round with loved ones and are looking for words about gratitude or even some funny Thanksgiving sayings . This collection of 99 Thanksgiving quotes covers the gamut and gives you lots to choose from.
As Nora Ephron once said, “The turkey. The sweet potatoes. The stuffing. The pumpkin pie. Is there anything else we all can agree so vehemently about? I don’t think so.” Thus, a hefty portion of the quotes here reference the Thanksgiving menu . After all, there’s a lot of wisdom in lines like food writer Lindsey Bareham’s “Good mashed potato is one of the great luxuries of life” (see also the late great Anthony Bourdain’s rule about Grandma’s turkey in quote no. 11). And you can never go wrong with something from the hilarious Oscar Wilde: “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
Many other Thanksgiving quotes in this collection turn our attention to the meaning of the holiday, such as “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer” (Maya Angelou) and “Thanksgiving is recognition of a debt that cannot be paid. We express thanks, whether or not we are able otherwise to reimburse the giver” (Billy Graham).
Scroll on for all 99 Thanksgiving quotes to fill your holiday messages and toasts this year.
Not finding quite the words you’re looking for? Peruse these collections too:
- Funny Thanksgiving Jokes for an Open-Mic Turkey Day
- 11 Thanksgiving Poems to Recite at Your Holiday Table
- 35 Thanksgiving Bible Verses for a Day of Gratitude and Praise
Sheri Wall, I Am Thankful
“Family and friends with grins ear to ear will gather together—Thanksgiving is near!”
Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
“Thanksgiving is not only being aware of the abundance of good in the world but embracing it.”
Thorton Wilder
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
J. Curtis Sanburn
“Just when the air turns frosty and the days shrink into darkness, the Christmas season arrives in America. It begins at Thanksgiving—with families, feasts and football.”
Debasish Mridha
“Give thanks as if you are living just to appreciate life. Live as if your life depends on love, kindness, gratitude, and thanksgiving.”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Wealth Reference Guide
“Gratitude is an amplifier of wealth.”
Marcie, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
“We should just be thankful for being together. I think that’s what they mean by Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown.”
Joanna Gaines, The Magnolia Story
“It’s up to us to choose contentment and thankfulness now—and to stop imagining that we have to have everything perfect before we’ll be happy.”
Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.”
RELATED: How Abraham Lincoln Began the American Thanksgiving Tradition
Billy Graham
“Thanksgiving is recognition of a debt that cannot be paid. We express thanks, whether or not we are able otherwise to reimburse the giver.”
Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw
“I often talk about the ‘Grandma rule’ for travelers. You may not like Grandma’s Thanksgiving turkey. … But it’s Grandma’s turkey. And you are in Grandma’s house. So…eat it. And afterward, say, ‘Thank you, Grandma, why, yes, yes of course I’d love seconds.’ ”
Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart
“Thanksgiving is a spiritual exercise, necessary to the building of a healthy soul. It takes us out of the stuffiness of ourselves into the fresh breeze and sunlight of the will of God.”
Thomas Merton
“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything.”
“Thanksgiving Day is a good day to recommit our energies to giving thanks and just giving.”
Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
“In my family, there were happy Thanksgivings and tolerable Easters, but Christmas was a holiday we failed at with real vigor.”
Maya Angelou, Celebrations
“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.”
Norm Macdonald
“The biggest laughs you’ll ever hear in life are like at a Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of loved ones and nothing funny is said, you know, but there’s this laughter that’s going through the room and it just comes from love.”
Konrad von Gesner
“Best of all is to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song.”
Queen Latifah
“I’ve been giving back since I was a teen, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and handing out toys at toys drives for Christmas. It’s very important to give back as a youth.”
“I am thankful. My heart grows. Love fills me from head to toes.”
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90 best Thanksgiving quotes to share this Turkey Day
Thanksgiving is one of the most beloved holidays of the year.
It's a day set aside to gather with loved ones and friends for the sole purpose of enjoying time together and a bountiful feast .
Whatever Turkey Day tradition you celebrate, you may be in the market for a Thanksgiving quote to post on Instagram, write in a card or send to loved ones to remind them that you're thinking of them this holiday season.
If that's the case, you'll find a collection of short, meaningful and funny Thanksgiving quotes to use in the list below.
From amusing quotes from "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" to messages of gratitude written or spoken by luminaries like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Maya Angelou , Eleanor Roosevelt and C.S. Lewis, you're bound to find whatever you're looking for this Turkey Day.
You'll also find Thanksgiving quotes for friends, funny quotes for relatives and messages of thanks that you're hoping to express this year.
Read on for a compilation of Turkey Day quotes that you're bound to be thankful for .
Best Thanksgiving Quotes
- “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “There is no better excess in the world than the excess of gratitude.” — Jean de La Bruyère
- “The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.” — C.S. Lewis, “Weight of Glory”
- “Don’t you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners? Where’s the mashed potatoes? Where’s the cranberry sauce? Where’s the pumpkin pie?” — Peppermint Patty, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?
- “The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.” — Norman Vincent Peale
- “Home is people. Not a place.” ― Robin Hobb
- “The most important thing in the world is family and love.” — John Wooden
- “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.” — Charles Spurgeon
- “I can’t cook a Thanksgiving dinner. All I can make is cold cereal and maybe toast.” ― Charlie Brown, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”
- “Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have a faith that in this love there is strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
- “When one has a grateful heart, life is so beautiful.” ― Roy Bennett
- “Find gratitude in the little things and your well of gratitude will never run dry.” ― Antonia Montoya
- “I suppose I will die never knowing what pumpkin pie tastes like when you have room for it.” — Robert Brault
- “Abundance is not a result you create. It is an existing state you recognize.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thanksgiving Quotes for Friends
- “When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.” — Maria Shriver
- “Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.” — Sanchita Pandey
- “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer." ― Maya Angelou, “Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer”
- “Have gratitude for all that you have, and you can be happy exactly as you are.” — Mandy Ingber
- “Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.” — Margaret Cousins
- “To have friends who will always take you to higher ground is an incalculable blessing.” — John Bytheway
- “Friendship is the wine of life.” — Edward Young
- “If you have one true friend you have more than your share.” ― Thomas Fuller
- “True friendship resists time, distance and silence.” — Isabel Allende
- “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” — Thomas Aquinas
- “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” — Walter Winchell
- “I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.” — William Shakespeare, "Richard II"
- “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.” — Melody Beattie
Short Thanksgiving Quotes
- “Having a place to go is a home. Having someone to love is a family. Having both is a blessing.” — Donna Hedges
- “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” — C.S. Lewis
- “Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace.” — Arianna Huffington
- “I think in every lesson there’s a blessing, and there’s so many blessings from all the lessons I’ve had to go through in life.” — Alonzo Mourning
- “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” — Karl Barth
- “You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
- “Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” — Amy Collette
- “You never know where a blessing can come from.” — Teena Marie
- “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” — Tony Robbins
- “When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness ... all the good things.” — Maya Angelou
- “No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.” — Alfred North Whitehead
- “A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen.” — John O’Donohue
- “Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude.” — Deepak Chopra
- “Giving is the key to living life of abundance blessings.” — Lailah Gifty Akita
- “If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” — Meister Eckhart
- “Blessings sometimes show up in unrecognizable disguises.” — Janette Oke
- “Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” — Lionel Hampton
- “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson
- “Gratitude will shift you to a higher frequency, and you will attract much better things.” — Rhonda Byrne
- “We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.” — John F. Kennedy
- “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” — Voltaire
Inspirational Thanksgiving Quotes
- “It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.” ― Germany Kent
- “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity … it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ― Melody Beattie
- “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust
- “Count your blessings, not your problems. Count your own blessings, not someone else’s. Remember that jealousy is when you count someone else’s blessings instead of your own.” — Roy T. Bennett, “The Light in the Heart”
- “Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” — Charles Dickens
- “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” — Epicurus
- “It’s never too late. Don’t focus on what was taken away. Find something to replace it, and acknowledge the blessing you have.” — Drew Barrymore
- “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.” — Henri Frédéric Amiel
- “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” — Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, “A Tour Round My Garden”
- “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” — A.A. Milne, “Winnie-the-Pooh”
- “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Thanksgiving Quotes About Family
- “So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.” — Haniel Long
- “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” — Michael J. Fox
- “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” — Mother Teresa
- “Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.” — Irina Shayk
- “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” — Anthony Brandt
- “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” — “Lilo & Stitch”
- “That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.” — Deb Caletti
- “I sustain myself with the love of family.” — Maya Angelou
- “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues … are created, strengthened and maintained.” — Winston Churchill
- “This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.” — Mitch Albom, “Tuesdays with Morrie”
- “It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.” —Peter Buffett
- “You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life.” — Matthew Quick, “The Silver Linings Playbook”
- “What greater blessing to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering.” — Robert Brault
- “In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another’s good, and bearing one another’s burdens.” — Henry Ward Beecher
- “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
Funny Thanksgiving Quotes
- “I haven’t even finished eating all my Halloween candy!” — Sally, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”
- “The average time for eating a Thanksgiving dinner is 12 minutes, which, incidentally, coincides with halftime.” — Erma Bombeck
- “Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.” — Kevin James
- “Thanksgiving ... that is all about overeating. One of the main dishes is actually called ‘stuffing.’ Stuffing? What names did they turn down? ‘Cram-it-in?’ ‘Eat-till-you-can’t-breathe?’ — Jim Gaffigan
- “Hope my relatives are getting along with the professional line sitter I hired to hold my place at the front of the Thanksgiving food line.” — John Lyon
- “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” — Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance”
- “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
- “I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that.” — Howie Mandel
- “Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.” — Jim Davis
- “Even though we’re a week and a half away from Thanksgiving, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” — Richard Roeper
- “Thanksgiving: when the people who are the most thankful are the ones who didn’t have to cook.” — Melanie White
- “You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.” — Jay Leno
- “I love spending Thanksgiving surrounded by all these great friends I met in the Best Buy parking lot.” — John Lyon
- “Every Thanksgiving I bring the champagne, because in my family we all know what our strengths are.” — Gloria Fallon
Sarah Lemire is a lifestyle and entertainment reporter for TODAY based in New York City. She covers holidays, celebrities and everything in between.
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88 Beautiful Thanksgiving Quotes That Celebrate the Season of Gratitude
These short quotes and powerful sayings remind us to show appreciation for our family and other blessings in life.
Thanksgiving is so much more than a day spent indulging in turkey , stuffing , sweet potato pie and a dozen other delicious side dishes and desserts . It's a day of practicing gratitude for the food on the table and a warm home and things like good health and strong friendships. And nothing helps us remember that better than Thanksgiving quotes that perfectly sum up what it means to be thankful and show appreciation for what we have and the love for our friends and family.
Sometimes, thoughtful sentiments and inspiring quotes from poets, authors, public speakers, politicians, celebrities and even comedians can lift us up. Other times, funny Thanksgiving quotes can serve as a great reminder that whatever chaos comes up on Thanksgiving, you're not the only one going through it. We included all types of quotes around the turkey-centric holiday on this list.
Use these quotes as conversation starters or perhaps print out some of your favorites on card stock and leave one on every guest's plate. These short quotes also work well alongside a nice bottle of wine as a hostess gift or paired with a photo as a cute Thanksgiving Instagram caption . Ultimately, no matter how you use them, what's most important is that you really take the time to read over a few and remind yourself of the true purpose behind Thanksgiving.
Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.
James E. Faust
As with all commandments, gratitude is a description of a successful mode of living. The thankful heart opens our eyes to a multitude of blessings that continually surround us.
Joyce Giraud
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Here’s a tip: Don’t cook Thanksgiving dinner for five people in 14 hours. Here’s another tip: Don’t ask a guy out for a first date on the least sexy holiday in America.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
Kin Hubbard
A lot of Thanksgiving days have been ruined by not carving the turkey in the kitchen.
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‘The Middle’
But we have to stay home. Thanksgiving's not Thanksgiving without Frugal Hoosier canned corn, Safeway boxed stuffing, and CVS pumpkin pie.
'Gilmore Girls'
It's not too much food. This is what we've been training for our whole lives. This is our destiny, this is our finest hour.
I mean, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a little emotional scarring.
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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.
Kevin James
Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.
Will Arnett
I am happy because I'm grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.
Amy Leigh Mercree
Thanksgiving is a joyous invitation to shower the world with love and gratitude.
You can’t have Thanksgiving without turkey. That’s like the Fourth of July without apple pie or Friday with no two pizzas.
Irv Kupcinet
An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.
William Blake
The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
Howie Mandel
I'm from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I'm thankful for that.
William Shakespeare
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
'The House of Yes'
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go baste the turkey and hide the kitchen knives.
Lizz (she/her) is a senior editor at Good Housekeeping , where she runs the GH Book Club, edits essays and long-form features and writes about pets, books and lifestyle topics. A journalist for almost two decades, she is the author of Biography of a Body and Buffalo Steel. She also teaches journalism as an adjunct professor at New York University's School of Professional Studies and creative nonfiction at the Muse Writing Center, and coaches with the New York Writing Room.
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