21 Christian Thanksgiving Quotes to Help You Give Thanks

In the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims and men of the Wampanoag Nation shared a feast and gave thanks for health and a plentiful harvest. Today, some people continue this tradition on Thanksgiving Day by offering their gratitude to God for his bountiful blessings in their lives.

Express your sincere thanks and receive a dose of spiritual inspiration as you read these memorable Christian Thanksgiving quotes on gratitude from famous voices of the past and present.

Christian Thanksgiving Quotes

William Bradford (1590-1657)

"To all ye Pilgrims:

"In as much as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetable, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience;

"Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. William Bradford, Ye Governor of Ye Colony."

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

“Be thankful. God has commanded it—for our good and for His glory. God’s command to be thankful is not the threatening demand of a tyrant. Rather, it is the invitation of a lifetime—the opportunity to draw near to Him at any moment of the day.”

George Matheson (1842-1906)

"My God, I have never thanked Thee for my 'thorn!' I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my 'thorn;' I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my 'thorn.' Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow."

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

"We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country." 

 John Newton (1725-1807)

"The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us, therefore, pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient."

Lysa TerKeurst

“If there was ever a secret for unleashing God’s powerful peace in a situation, it’s developing a heart of true thanksgiving.”

John Wesley (1703-1791)

"The best helps to growth in grace are the ill usage, the affronts, and the losses which befall us. We should receive them with all thankfulness, as preferable to all others, were it only on this account, that our will has no part therein."

Andrew Murray (1828-1917)

"Let us thank God heartily as often as we pray that we have His Spirit in us to teach us to pray. Thanksgiving will draw our hearts out to God and keep us engaged with Him; it will take our attention from ourselves and give the Spirit room in our hearts."

Melody Beattie

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow."

Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910)

"The prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes on into waiting, will always end in thankfulness, triumph, and praise."

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963)

"Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it."

John Calvin (1509-1564)

"The Lord has given us a table at which to feast, not an altar on which a victim is to be offered; He has not consecrated priests to make sacrifice, but servants to distribute the sacred feast."

R. Kent Huges

"The height of devotion is reached when reverence and contemplation produce passionate worship, which in turn breaks forth in thanksgiving and praise in word and song."

John MacArthur

"A thankful heart is one of the primary identifying characteristics of a believer. It stands in stark contrast to pride, selfishness, and worry. And it helps fortify the believer's trust in the Lord and reliance of His provision, even in the toughest times. No matter how choppy the seas become, a believer's heart is buoyed by constant praise and gratefulness to the Lord."

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

"Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow."

"The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!"

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

Charles Finney (1792-1875)

"A state of mind that sees God in everything is evidence of growth in grace and a thankful heart."

Warren Wiersbe (1929-2019)

"The Christian who walks with the Lord and keeps constant communion with Him will see many reason for rejoicing and thanksgiving all day long."

Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901)

"A highly favored people, mindful of their dependence on the bounty of Divine Providence, should seek fitting occasion to testify gratitude and ascribe praise to Him who is the author of their many blessings. It behooves us, then, to look back with thankful hearts over the past year and bless God for His infinite mercy in vouchsafing to our land enduring peace, to our people freedom from pestilence and famine, to our husbandmen abundant harvests, and to them that labor a recompense of their toil."

Jose Hobday (1929-2009)

"First Step: Plant your feet firmly on the earth. Using your five senses, give thanks to our Creator God for the countless ways God comes to us through creation- for all the beauty that your eyes see, for all the sounds that your ears ear, for all the scents that you smell, the tastes that you taste, for all that you feel (the sun, wind, rain, snow, warm, or cold). Pray this day that you may be open and attuned to the countless ways that our Creator God comes to us through your senses, through the gifts of creation. Second Step: Let go of all the pain, struggle, regret, failures, garbage of yesterday - step out of it - leave it behind- brush the dust of it from your feet. Third Step: With this third and final step, step into the gift of the new day, full of hope, promise, and potential. Give thanks for the gift of this new day, which God has made!"

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

"My fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and happiness..."