103 Appreciation Quotes

Expressing gratitude can often be a powerful way to connect with others and recognize the goodness in our lives. Whether it's acknowledging a kind gesture, celebrating a significant accomplishment, or simply appreciating the little things, the right words can make all the difference. To help you articulate these feelings, we've curated a collection of the top 103 appreciation quotes. This compilation spans a variety of sentiments, so you'll find the perfect quote for any occasion. Let’s dive in and explore this treasure trove of words that can help you convey your gratitude and appreciation beautifully.

1. “Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.” - W.H. Auden

2. “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!” - Mae West

3. “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” - Mark Twain

4. “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” - Hunter S. Thompson

5. “Were all the geniuses of history to focus on this single theme, they could never fully express their bafflement at the darkness of the human mind. No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.” - seneca

6. “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” - Marcus Aurelius

7. “In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued."(From a speech read on video on August 31, 1995 before the NGO Forum on Women, Beijing, China)” - Aung San Suu Kyi

8. “Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.” - Oprah Winfrey

9. “A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.” - Walt Whitman

10. “The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.” - Marcel Duchamp

11. “By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.” - Voltaire

12. “In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her. ” - John McCain

13. “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."[The Science of Second-Guessing (New York Times Magazine Interview, December 12, 2004)]” - Stephen W. Hawking

14. “Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become. We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents.” - Harley King

15. “We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.” - Abraham Joshua Heschel

16. “Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” - Voltaire

17. “It can be exhausting eating a meal cooked by a man. With a woman, it's, Ho hum, pass the beans. A guy, you have to act like he just built the Taj Mahal.” - Deb Caletti

18. “The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” - Paulo Coelho

19. “Appreciation can make a day - even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. -- Margaret Cousins” - Margaret Cousins

20. “Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” - Oscar Wilde

21. “I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” - Lewis Carroll

22. “Nature didn't need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.” - Scott Westerfeld

23. “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love—then make that day count!” - Steve Maraboli

24. “Forget yesterday - it has already forgotten you. Don't sweat tomorrow - you haven't even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift - today.” - Steve Maraboli

25. “At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” - Steve Maraboli

26. “We can't undo a single thing we have ever done, but we can make decisions today that propel us to the life we want and towards the healing we need.” - Steve Maraboli

27. “Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up.” - Steve Maraboli

28. “Finding happiness should not be seen as finding a needle in a haystack. Happiness is within. Each day is a blessing that brings an abundance of happiness. Therefore, finding happiness should be like finding a gift in a stack of gifts.” - Steve Maraboli

29. “A grateful mindset can set you free from the prison of disempowerment and the shackles of misery.” - Steve Maraboli

30. “Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness.” - Steve Maraboli

31. “The problem that we have with a victim mentality is that we forget to see the blessings of the day. Because of this, our spirit is poisoned instead of nourished.” - Steve Maraboli

32. “A very small percentage of the people in this world will actually experience and live today. So many people will be stuck on another day, another time that traumatized them and caused them to spiritually stutter so they miss out on this day.” - Steve Maraboli

33. “It's funny how, in this journey of life, even though we may begin at different times and places, our paths cross with others so that we may share our love, compassion, observations, and hope. This is a design of God that I appreciate and cherish.” - Steve Maraboli

34. “It's funny, but have you ever noticed that the more special something is, the more people seem to take it for granted? It's like they think it won't ever change. Just like this house here. All it ever needed was a little attention, and it would never have ended up like this in the first place.” - Nicholas Sparks

35. “We all love animals. Why do we call some "pets" and others "dinner?” - k.d. lang

36. “This place was truly the highest and the lowest of all worlds - the most beautiful senses, the most exquisite emotions.. the most malevolent desires, the darkest deeds. Perhaps it was meant to be so. Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached.” - Stephenie Meyer

37. “I wake up in the morning and I see that flower, with the dew on its petals, and at the way it's folding out, and it makes me happy, she said. It's important to focus on the things in the here and now, I think. In a month, the flower will be shriveled and you will miss its beauty if you don't make the effort to do it now. Your life, eventually, is the same way.” - Dan Buettner

38. “Don't forget, a person's greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.” - H. Jackson Brown Jr.

39. “When you give appreciation IN ORDER TO get something– it's manipulation and people can sense it. Appreciate genuinely.” - Marilyn Suttle

40. “Liking is probably the best form of ownership, and ownership the worst form of liking.” - José Saramago

41. “Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer’s day.” - Oscar Wilde

42. “Just because it isn't perfect, doesn't mean it isn't awesome.” - M.R. Mathias

43. “Every one of my fans is so special to me” - Justin Bieber

44. “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” - William Arthur Ward

45. “A man has only one escape from his old self — to see a different self in the mirror of some woman's eyes.” - Clare Boothe Luce

46. “For it falls outThat what we have we prize not to the worthWhiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,Why, then we rack the value, then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhile it was ours.” - William Shakespeare

47. “Ten long trips around the sun since I last saw that smile, but only joy and thankfulness that on a tiny world in the vastness, for a couple of moments in the immensity of time, we were one.” - Ann Druyan

48. “I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.” - Elbert Hubbard

49. “The best way to be appreciative for your life is to live it; don't die for any other reason but love. Dreams are what guide us, art is what defines us, math is makes it all possible, and love is what lights our way.” - Mike Norton

50. “You can’t just write and write and put things in a drawer. They wither without the warm sun of someone else’s appreciation.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

51. “Cela s'est passé. Je sais aujourd'hui saluer la beauté.” - Arthur Rimbaud

52. “There was so much to learn and it was all fun. But the best part was getting a laugh from an audience. That was like drowning in candy.” - Hal Holbrook

53. “Scully,' [Mulder] said, his voice quiet and serious, 'with the... unorthodox explanations I often find when studying the evidence, I know you're always skeptical-but every time you're at least fair to me. You respect my opinion, even when you don't agree with it.' He looked at his hands. 'I don't know if I've ever told you, but I really appreciate that.'She looked at him and smiled. 'You've told me, Mulder. Maybe not in words... but you've told me.” - Kevin J. Anderson

54. “Hating skin color is contempt for God's divine creative imagination. Honoring it is appreciation for conscious, beautiful-love-inspired diversity.” - T.F. Hodge

55. “What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.” - Kazuo Ishiguro

56. “I want you to embark on the truth of loving yourself because when you love yourself and when you appreciate yourself, you will make healthy changes in your life for healthy reasons.” - Steve Maraboli

57. “The Christmas after Mom & Dad split up, they both went crazy buying us presents. Matt, Jonny, and I were showered with gifts at home and at Dads apartment. I thought that was great. I was all in favor of my love being paid for with presents. This year all I got was a diary and a secondhand watch. Okay, I know this is corny, but this really is what Christmas is all about.” - Susan Beth Pfeffer

58. “You are evidence of your mother's strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.” - Criss Jami

59. “Sometimes I feel like relationships consist of telling your same life stories to different people until someone finally appreciates them.” - Kate Rockland

60. “Being in the habit of saying "Thank you," of making sure that people receive attention so they know you value them, of not presuming that people will always be there--this is a good habit, regardless...make sure to give virtual and actual high-fives to those who rock and rock hard.” - Sarah Wendell

61. “There's a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they're absolutely free. Don't miss so many of them.” - Jo Walton

62. “Keats was getting a reputation just when he was too ill to appreciate it or build on it: his country was taking notice of him just when he would have to leave it.” - Jude Morgan

63. “What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in,whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, towhom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorlyunderstood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profoundunderstanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vitalrole they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertainfuture that is unfolding.” - Jim Robbins

64. “For the yesterdays and todays, and the tomorrows I can hardly wait for - Thank you.” - Cecelia Ahern

65. “If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, just watch the sunrise.” - Jeannette Walls

66. “No matter that they had been together for years, always a feeling of formality when they first saw each other again, even if the separation had been only hours. It had something to do with the attention [he] paid to her – the fact that he never took anyone’s return for granted.” - Tatjana Soli

67. “True happiness that stands the taste of time comes by recognizing and appreciating what we do possess.” - Ogwo David Emenike

68. “You can't truly appreciate the top if you've never hit rock bottom.” - Vanna B.

69. “Sometimes we need to see the bad side, to appreciate the good side.” - Anthony Liccione

70. “Being human makes us one. Be uniquely ourselves makes us individual." - Nancy S. Mure, Author of Unidentical Twins” - Nancy S. Mure

71. “Being human makes us one. Being uniquely ourselves makes us individual." - Nancy S. Mure, Author of Unidentical Twins” - Nancy S. Mure

72. “True love is a developed and intense appreciation for someone. It’s that perfect awareness that you are finally whole when she’s with you, and that hollow incompleteness you suffer when she’s gone.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

73. “Happiness doesn't always come in pink. Learn to appreciate the rainbow.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

74. “To appreciate life's small moments, it helps to have a sense the whole can never be made perfect.” - Alain De Botton

75. “Learning to appreciate the beauty that surrounds you is one of the keys to your happiness.” - Tom Giaquinto

76. “Everyone appreciates being appreciated.” - Lance Greenfield

77. “If we define optimism broadly as the tendency to maintain a positive outlook, then realistic optimism is the tendency to maintain a positive outlook within the constraints of the available "measurable phenomena situated in the physical and social world" (DeGrandpre, 2000, p. 733). With respect to fuzzy meaning, realistic optimism involves enhancing and focusing on the favorable aspects of our experiences. Examples include being lenient in our evaluation of past events, actively appreciating the positive aspects of our current situation, and routinely emphasizing possible opportunities for the future. With respect to fuzzy knowledge, realistic optimism involves hoping, aspiring, and searching for positive experiences while acknowledging what we do not know and accepting what we cannot know.” - Sandra L. Schneider

78. “Appreciation involves being alert to the positive aspects of the current situation and feeling thankful for what one has and for one's circumstances. This requires not only a positive perspective in the present but also conscious awareness of features in the surround. The latter, in fact, is something that may be surprisingly rare. Especially when we are engaging in routine activities, we often do so mindlessly (Langer, 1997) or as though we were on automatic pilot (Cialdini, 1993). If we learn to bring our attention to the current state, we can choose to focus on positive aspects of the situation and to remind ourselves of the potential sources of good feelings that might otherwise pass unnoticed.” - Sandra L. Schneider

79. “If you want to find a reason to smile, to find a reason to be happy, learn to appreciate the beauty that surrounds you.” - Lionel Suggs

80. “Thanksgiving is the holiday that encompasses all others. All of them, from Martin Luther King Day to Arbor Day to Christmas to Valentine's Day, are in one way or another about being thankful.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

81. “All I have learned in life really just boils down to this: there is only one difference between the so-called wise and the so-called foolish...and between those who are truly happy and those who are not. Those who are wise - and those who are happy - embrace and appreciate life. Those who are unhappy and unwise do not. That is all; that is the only difference.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

82. “I appreciated art, long before I could produce it.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

83. “The world is already yours - why try to conquer it?” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

84. “Even the smallest tender mercy can bring peace when recognized and appreciated.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

85. “There's no alternative to being yourself. Accept it, honour it, value it - and get on with it.” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

86. “Be thankful for your allotment in an imperfect world.  Though better circumstances can be imagined, far worse are nearer misses than you probably care to realize.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

87. “Some people like living in black and white worlds. Let them stay there. Appreciate all the colors you see in your world though.” - Ashly Lorenzana

88. “The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted...Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” - Abraham Heschel

89. “Bridges are built not to cross over it but it is built to lift you to the other side safely.” - Edwin Lawrence

90. “The biggest spur to my interest in art came when I played van Gogh in the biographical film Lust For Life. The role affected me deeply. I was haunted by this talented genius who took his own life, thinking he was a failure. How terrible to paint pictures and feel that no one wants them. How awful it would be to write music that no one wants to hear. Books that no one wants to read. And how would you like to be an actor with no part to play, and no audience to watch you. Poor Vincent—he wrestled with his soul in the wheat field of Auvers-sur-Oise, stacks of his unsold paintings collecting dust in his brother's house. It was all too much for him, and he pulled the trigger and ended it all. My heart ached for van Gogh the afternoon that I played that scene. As I write this, I look up at a poster of his "Irises"—a poster from the Getty Museum. It's a beautiful piece of art with one white iris sticking up among a field of blue ones. They paid a fortune for it, reportedly $53 million. And poor Vincent, in his lifetime, sold only one painting for 400 francs or $80 dollars today. This is what stimulated my interest in buying works of art from living artists. I want them to know while they are alive that I enjoy their paintings hanging on my walls, or their sculptures decorating my garden” - Kirk Douglas

91. “Sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters.” - Benjamin Hoff

92. “Gratitude doesn't change the scenery.  It merely washes clean the glass you look through so you can clearly see the colors.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

93. “Gratitude is the real treasure God wants us to find, because it isn't the pot of gold but the rainbow that colors our world.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

94. “Gratitude paints little smiley faces on everything it touches.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

95. “One grateful thought is a ray of sunshine.  A hundred such thoughts paint a sunrise.  A thousand will rival the glaring sky at noonday - for gratitude is light against the darkness.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

96. “He cannot endure Rachel, because he knows she has a proper appreciation of him.” - Anne Brontë

97. “People from different cultures have different definitions for beauty. Isn't that sad to judge others with our standards... rather than appreciate them?” - Mizuki Nomura

98. “Appreciate the things and people in your life while remaining independent of them. Give thanks for them, but realize that they do not complete you. Only you can complete you.” - Serenity Rey

99. “Granddad once told me that to truly love this life, you need to know its darkest corners. But if you can bring a bit of sunshine to the sunless, it can only be for the good. I mean, what else are we really here for on this earth? Think about it some day, when the spring mornings look so golden and green.” - Gareth Thompson

100. “...listening with absorbed attention more to her voice than to what she was saying, and thinking how like she was, flowering through her voice into beauty in the darkness, to some butterflies he had come across in the Swiss mountains the summer before. When they were folded up they were grey, mothlike creatures that one might easily overlook, but directly they opened their wings they became the loveliest things in the world, all rose-colour or heavenly blue. So had she been to him in the daylight that afternoon,—an ordinary woman, not in any way noticeable; but now listen to her, opening into beauty on the wings of her voice!” - Elizabeth von Arnim

101. “He appreciated you. But he couldn't feed your soul for the rest of your life. Can't you just appreciate that he was great for you for that period of time?” - Susan E. Isaacs

102. “There is something beautiful in you seeking freedom.” - Bryant McGill

103. “Love is not about liking, loving and caring, but appreciation, understanding and devotion.” - M.F. Moonzajer