Explore Quotes on Grateful

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.

"Great suffering has a silver-lining that we can be grateful for, because it builds up a human being and puts him or her within reach of self-knowledge."

Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures. Everything is better than some things and worse than others. Which you choose to compare your experiences and situation with determines whether you will be happy and grateful or sad and jealous.

Jeronimo, my grandfather, swine-herder and story-teller, feeling death about to arrive and take him, went and said goodbye to the trees in the yard, one by one, embracing them and crying because he knew he wouldn't see them again. To truly appreciate life we must remember that nothing lasts for ever and take nothing we enjoy for granted. In so doing we stay grateful and happy for all our good fortune.

The world breaks everyone or nearly everyone, of their childish illusions, assumptions and wishes, often painfully and afterwards due to the personal growth in practical experience, insight and the resulting wisdom many are strong at the broken places just like mended broken bones often are, and some people even have the great insight to be grateful for the purifying fire.

"...All events are blessings given to us to learn from and therefore we should be grateful for the opportunity to grow and evolve into our best selves."

You'll never meet a happy ungrateful person, or an unhappy grateful person because gratitude and happiness go together. Sometimes happiness precedes gratitude but often gratitude precedes happiness. The latter is achieved by realising things could be worse but aren't and so feeling relieved, grateful and happy.

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness and what we compare it to - better and we envious and sad, worse and we feel grateful and happy.

Be grateful for challenges because... Had there been no difficulties and no thorns in the way, then [each woman and] man would have been in his primitive state and no progress made in civilisation and mental culture.

Happiness is a continuous creative activity of imaginatively comparing your experiences to things that aren't as good and thereby feeling happy and grateful.

In order to be happy we must first possess inner contentment; and inner contentment doesn't come from having all we want; but rather from wanting and appreciating being grateful for all we have.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? You only truly, deeply appreciate and are grateful for something when you compare and contrast it to something worse.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. It can be argued that peace and happiness comes from the subjective internalised perspective of realizing things could be worse and being grateful they aren't. The alternative view that peace and happiness comes from the objective external perspective of having more and better things than at present, while important for growth, can be a never-ending source of jealousy, dissatisfaction and disappointment. A balance of the two, where people are grateful for what they have while striving for more seems the best blended perspective.

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another for there will always be others whose lives on the face of it appear better. However just remember and focus on the fact that your life could be much worse and be grateful it isn't. No matter what others or even you may briefly think you are lucky things aren't worse so be grateful.

In the light of his vision that is the perspective that allows him to be grateful that things are not worse he has found his freedom and joy: his thoughts are peace, his words are peace and his work is peace.

The secret to happiness is to lower your expectations. ...that is what you compare your experience with. If your expectations and standards are very high and only allow yourself to be happy when things are exquisite, you'll never be happy and grateful. There will always be some flaw. But compare your experience with lower expectations, especially something not as good, and you'll find much in your experience of the world to love, cherish and enjoy, every single moment.

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them in particular caused by what we compare it to: something worse and we feel grateful for what we have; something better and we feel somehow let down.

The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance.

People only see what they are prepared to see. If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful for you will find it everywhere.

The power to become habituated to his surroundings and therefore to no longer be grateful for what is good in it is a marked characteristic of mankind and needs to be fought against if a person is to be happy.

The degree of complications and unhappiness in a person's life corresponds to the degree to which he dwells on the way he thinks the world ought to be rather than the way it really is. and being grateful it isn't worse, while trying to make it better.