26 verified quotes from 18 writers, c. 475 BC to 1918.
Gratitude in these books is often a matter of noticing. Anne Shirley is glad to live in a world where there are Octobers; the child in Stevenson’s verses finds the world so full of a number of things that we should all be as happy as kings; Thoreau reminds his readers that heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Others come at it through hardship: Shakespeare’s exiled duke finds sermons in stones and good in everything, and Thoreau tells a reader to love his life, poor as it is. Every quote below was found word for word in the full text of the public-domain edition we link, with a short note of ours on its context.
What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow;—I have still joy in the midst of these things
Our note: Confucius on being content with little; he goes on to call ill-gotten riches a floating cloud.
Verified in the full text of The Analects on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #3330
Never say about anything, I have lost it, but say I have restored it.
Our note: The Stoic habit of treating what we have as on loan, so that losing it is giving it back.
Verified in the full text of The Encheiridion on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #10661 · Collected in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Our note: The closing couplet of the sonnet that begins in despair.
Verified in the full text of Sonnet 29 on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: The Golden Age, Joachim Wtewael, 1605
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Our note: The banished Duke on what life in the forest teaches.
Verified in the full text of As You Like It on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: A Cardinal's Procession, Ottavio Leoni (Il Padovano), 1621
All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have
Our note: Crusoe, years into his life on the island.
Verified in the full text of Robinson Crusoe on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #521
I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side
Our note: Crusoe on how his outlook changed on the island.
Verified in the full text of Robinson Crusoe on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #521
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value
Our note: From the same pamphlet, on why a hard-won freedom is valued more.
Verified in the full text of The American Crisis on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #3741
Painted the same decade: Virgil's Tomb by Moonlight, with Silius Italicus Declaiming, Joseph Wright (Wright of Derby), 1779
Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day
Our note: Franklin explaining why he bothered to write about small civic improvements.
Verified in the full text of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #148
Painted the same decade: The Sackville Children, John Hoppner, 1796
Nature never did betray The heart that loved her
Our note: From the poem of revisiting a river valley after five years.
Verified in the full text of Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #8905 · Collected in Lyrical Ballads
Painted the same decade: Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800), Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), 1792
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
Our note: Thoreau urges readers to face their circumstances rather than complain about them.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.
Our note: From the conclusion, on finding joy without wealth.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Our note: Thoreau on noticing wonder in the ground beneath us, from the chapter on the pond in winter.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle
Our note: From a poem listing everyday things as miracles.
Verified in the full text of Miracles on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1322 · Collected in Leaves of Grass
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life.
Our note: From the closing part of the novel, where Jean Valjean's life is weighed.
Verified in the full text of Les Misérables on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #135
Painted the same decade: A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?), Edgar Degas, 1865
The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
Our note: The whole of the two-line poem "Happy Thought."
Verified in the full text of A Child's Garden of Verses on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #136
Painted the same decade: La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle; Augustine-Alix Pellicot Roulin, 1851–1930), Vincent van Gogh, 1889
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
Our note: From "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar," the maxims that head the chapters of Twain's travel book.
Verified in the full text of Following the Equator on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2895
Painted the same decade: Irises, Vincent van Gogh, 1890
Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.
Our note: The closing lines of the story of Della and Jim.
Verified in the full text of The Gift of the Magi on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2776 · Collected in The Four Million
You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life!
Our note: Bennett's picture of each new day as a gift.
Verified in the full text of How to Live on 24 Hours a Day on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2274
The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it
Our note: From the opening chapter of Bennett's little book on using time.
Verified in the full text of How to Live on 24 Hours a Day on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2274
I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
Our note: Anne, gathering autumn leaves.
Verified in the full text of Anne of Green Gables on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #45
…you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you
Our note: Anne, speaking to the "dear old world" on a lovely evening.
Verified in the full text of Anne of Green Gables on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #45
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure
Our note: The first line of Gitanjali, Tagore's own English versions of his Bengali songs.
Verified in the full text of Gitanjali on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #7164
Painted the same decade: Tilla Durieux (Ottilie Godeffroy, 1880–1971), Auguste Renoir, 1914
It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones
Our note: Judy Abbott in one of her letters to her unknown benefactor.
Verified in the full text of Daddy-Long-Legs on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #157
Painted the same decade: Tilla Durieux (Ottilie Godeffroy, 1880–1971), Auguste Renoir, 1914
The world has kissed my soul with its pain, asking for its return in songs
Our note: A verse from Stray Birds on turning suffering into song.
Verified in the full text of Stray Birds on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #6524
Painted the same decade: Tilla Durieux (Ottilie Godeffroy, 1880–1971), Auguste Renoir, 1914
Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.
Our note: Jim Burden, back on the Nebraska road he first travelled as a boy.
Verified in the full text of My Ántonia on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #242
Painted the same decade: Tilla Durieux (Ottilie Godeffroy, 1880–1971), Auguste Renoir, 1914
Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.
Our note: Jim Burden's last words on his friendship with Ántonia.
Verified in the full text of My Ántonia on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #242
Painted the same decade: Tilla Durieux (Ottilie Godeffroy, 1880–1971), Auguste Renoir, 1914
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