“To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.”

“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”

“Seek always to do some good, somewhere... Even if it's a little thing, so something for those that need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.”

“He who does not reflect his life back to God in gratitude does not know himself.”

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

“When I look back upon my early days I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for what they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the flesh.”

“I do not believe that we can put into anyone ideas which are not in himalready. As a rule there is in everyone all sorts of good ideas, readylike tinder. But much of this tinder catches fire, or catches itsuccessfully, only when it meets some flame or spark from the outside,from some other person. Often, too, our own light goes out, and isrekindled by some experience we go through with a fellow man. Thus wehave each of us cause to think with deep gratitude of those who havelighted the flame within us. If we had before us those who have thusbeen a blessing to us, and could tell them how it came about, they wouldbe amazed to learn what passed over from their life to ours.”