Gratitude

Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing.

Down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.

But whate’er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; If ever you have look’d on better days, If ever been where bells have knoll’d to church, If ever sat at any good man’s feast, If ever from your eyelids wip’d a tear, And know what ’tis to pity, and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.

And He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age!

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

For it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.

I’ll seal to such a bond, And say there is much kindness in the Jew.

For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me?

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor.

I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends.

O! who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat? O, no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

With a little gift; and precious are all things that come from friends.

For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory Of benefits, noble is he no more. 2

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though ’twere his own.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

The sweetest of all sounds is praise.

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.

Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.

One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.

Every gift which is given, even though is be small, is in reality great, if it is given with affection.

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

He has the most who is most content with the least.