Thanksgiving 2021: Best holiday quotes, inspiration, blessings and prayers - al.com

Today is a time when many Americans gather with friends and family to give thanks for their many blessings.

The Thanksgiving holiday is a tradition that dates back to November 1621 when Plymouth colonists celebrated the bountiful harvest they had grown with the help of the Wampanoag Indians.

The celebration grew and now is a major holiday and the official kickoff of the Christmas season.

Here are some of the best holiday quotes, inspiration, blessings and prayers to mark Thanksgiving 2021:

"Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind." - - Lionel Hampton

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." -- Oprah Winfrey

"The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for." – Norman Vincent Peale

"Our Father in Heaven, we give thanks for the pleasure of gathering together for this occasion. We give thanks for this food prepared by loving hands. We give thanks for life, the freedom to enjoy it all, and all other blessings. As we partake of this food, we pray for health and strength to carry on and try to live as You would have us. This we ask in the name of Christ, Our Heavenly Father." – Harry Jewell

"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer." – Maya Angelou

"For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received." - - Storm Jameson

"If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share." – W. Clement Stone

"Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it's all an experience." – Roy T. Bennett

"Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy." -- Jacques Maritain

"We thank you for the turkey, the gravy, and the dressing. Dear Lord, this table overflows with Thy abundant blessing. Let us always be aware that all gifts come from You, and may we serve Your heavenly will in everything we do. Amen." — Joanna Fuchs

"It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful." - David Steindl-Rast

"To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven." - Johannes A. Gaertner

"Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings." - - William Arthur Ward

"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily." – Gerald Good

"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul." -- Henry Ward Beecher

"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

Give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of your life. Appreciate and never take for granted all that you have." - Catherine Pulsifer

"The men and women in the Armed Forces, that's what I always think about and what I teach my kids about. We're getting ready to sit down at the table and have Thanksgiving, and there's people that are not with their families." - - Guy Fieri

"No one has ever become poor by giving." – Anne Frank

"Thanksgiving Day is a good day to recommit our energies to giving thanks and just giving." - - Amy Grant

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

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." – Charles Dickens

"Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse." - - Henry Van Dyke

"Thanksgiving is a time when the world gets to see just how blessed and how workable the Christian system is. The emphasis is not on giving or buying, but on being thankful and expressing that appreciation to God and to one another." - - John Clayton

"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." – Epictetus

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." -- John F. Kennedy

"Thanksgiving is a joyous invitation to shower the world with love and gratitude." - Amy Leigh Mercree