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"[Let us] unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and ruler of nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions."

-- George Washington, in the first presidential proclamation, in 1789, of a day of Thanksgiving

"Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people."

-- Samuel Johnson

"They fell upon an ungenial climate, where there were nine months of winter and three months of cold weather, and that called out the best energies of the men, and of the women too, to get a mere subsistence out of the soil, with such a climate. In their efforts to do that they cultivated industry and frugality at the same time -- which is the real foundation of the greatness of the Pilgrims."

-- Ulysses S. Grant

"Thanksgiving for a former, doth invite God to bestow a second benefit."

-- Robert Herrick

"A grateful mind

By owing owes not, but still pays, at once

Indebted and discharg'd."

-- John Milton

"The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din."

-- Samuel Coleridge

"Lord, for the erring thought

Not into evil wrought:

Lord, for the wicked will

Betrayed and baffled still;

For the heart from itself kept,

Our thanksgiving accept."

-- William Dean Howells

"O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

"Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms."

-- Psalms 95

"What is the late November doing with the disturbance of the spring?"

-- T. S. Eliot

"I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof."

-- John Adams

"Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody."

-- Samuel Pepys

"I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. ... The turkey is a much more respectable bird."

-- Benjamin Franklin

"And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.

"And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger."

-- Leviticus 19:9-10

"O ye who believe! Eat of the good things that we have provided for you, and be grateful to Allah, if it is him ye worship."

-- The Quran 2:172

"Oh Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last."

-- John Henry Newman

"Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,

The bee's collected treasures sweet,

Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet

The still small voice of gratitude."

-- Thomas Gray

"Come, ye thankful people, come;

Raise the song of Harvest-home;

All be safely gathered in

Ere the winter storms begin;

God, our Maker, doth provide

For our wants to be supplied.

Come to God's own temple, come;

Raise the song of Harvest-home."

-- Henry Alford

"Laws, freedom, truth and faith in God

Came with those exiles o'er the waves;

And, where their pilgrim feet have trod,

The God they trusted guards their graves."

-- Leonard Bacon

"When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep?

"No -- here's to the pilot that weathered the storm."

-- George Canning

"You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance."

-- Kahlil Gibran

"He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt."

-- Seneca

"We, thine unworthy servants, do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men."

-- The Book of Common Prayer (1928)

"[Thanksgiving] was founded by th' Puritans to give thanks f'r bein' presarved fr'm th' Indyans, an' ... we keep it to give thanks we are presarved fr'm th' Puritans."

-- Finley Peter Dunne

(Mr. Dooley)

"He that eats till he is sick, must fast till he is well."

-- Thomas Fuller

"Step softly, under snow or rain,

To find the place where men can pray;

The way is all so very plain

That we may lose the way."

-- G.K. Chesterton