75 Thanksgiving quotes to express your gratitude for life's blessings.

Thanksgiving is when we offer thanks for the many blessings that make our lives better each and every day.

Among them? A gathering of loved ones for a Turkey Day feast, lots of football, Black Friday shopping and an entire weekend set aside to relax on the couch and watch holiday movies.

But most everyone can agree that it's friends and family that, by far, that are most important things to celebrate on Thanksgiving — and the rest of the year, too.

To help express your gratitude for loved ones this year, we've collected a list of Thanksgiving quotes that not only show your appreciation, but also just how thankful you are for the good things in life, no matter what they may be.

Among this collection of sentiments and messages, you'll find funny Thanksgiving sayings for those who love a solid dad joke, as well as inspirational messages on love and friendship from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Deepak Chopra and Maya Angelou.

Whatever you've come for, there's a cornucopia of quotes here for you to choose from. And, yes, that Thanksgiving pun was totally intended.

With so many good Thanksgiving quotes to choose from, you can focus your attention on other Turkey Day activities, like spending quality time with the people you love. And that's something to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving quotes for friends

• “When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.” — Maria Shriver

• “Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.” — Sanchita Pandey

• “Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer." ― Maya Angelou, “Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer”

• “Have gratitude for all that you have, and you can be happy exactly as you are.” — Mandy Ingber

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

• “To have friends who will always take you to higher ground is an incalculable blessing.” — John Bytheway

• “Friendship’s the wine of life.” — Edward Young

• “If you have one true friend you have more than your share.” ― Thomas Fuller

• “True friendship resists time, distance and silence.” — Isabel Allende

• “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” — Thomas Aquinas

• “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” — C.S. Lewis

• “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” — Walter Winchell

• “I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.” — William Shakespeare, "Richard II"

• “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart” — Eleanor Roosevelt

• "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life" — Melody Beattie

Short Thanksgiving quotes

• “When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.” — C.S. Lewis

• “Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace.” — Arianna Huffington

• “I think in every lesson there’s a blessing, and there’s so many blessings from all the lessons I’ve had to go through in life.” — Alonzo Mourning

• “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” — Karl Barth

• “You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.” — Elizabeth Gilbert

• “Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” — Amy Collette

• “You never know where a blessing can come from.” — Teena Marie

• “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” — Tony Robbins

• “When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness ... all the good things.” — Maya Angelou

• “No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.” — Alfred North Whitehead

• “A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen.” — John O’Donohue

• “Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open the door through gratitude.” — Deepak Chopra

• “Giving is the key to living life of abundance blessings.” — Lailah Gifty Akita

• “If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” — Meister Eckhart

• “Blessings sometimes show up in unrecognizable disguises. ” — Janette Oke

• “Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” — Lionel Hampton

• “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson

• “Gratitude will shift you to a higher frequency, and you will attract much better things.” — Rhonda Byrne

• “We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.” — John F. Kennedy

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

Inspirational Thanksgiving quotes

• "It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.” ― Germany Kent

• “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity … it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ― Melody Beattie

• “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust

• “Count your blessings, not your problems. Count your own blessings, not someone else’s. Remember that jealousy is when you count someone else’s blessings instead of your own.” — Roy T. Bennett, "The Light in the Heart"

• “Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” — Charles Dickens

• “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” — Epicurus

• “It’s never too late. Don’t focus on what was taken away. Find something to replace it, and acknowledge the blessing you have.” — Drew Barrymore

• “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.” — Henri Frederic Amiel

• “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr, "A Tour Round My Garden"

• “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” — A.A. Milne, "Winnie-the-Pooh"

• “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thanksgiving quotes about family

• “So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.” — Haniel Long

• “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” — Michael J. Fox

• “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” — Mother Teresa

• “Nothing is better than going home to family and eating good food and relaxing.” — Irina Shayk

• “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” — Anthony Brandt

• “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” — "Lilo & Stitch"

• “That’s what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you’re not so lovable.” — Deb Caletti

• “I sustain myself with the love of family.” — Maya Angelou

• “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues … are created, strengthened and maintained.” — Winston Churchill

• “This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.” — Mitch Albom, "Tuesdays with Morrie"

• “It didn’t matter how big our house was; it mattered that there was love in it.” —Peter Buffett

• “You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life.” — Matthew Quick, "The Silver Linings Playbook"

• “What greater blessing to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering.” — Robert Brault

• “In the family, happiness is in the ratio in which each is serving the others, seeking one another’s good, and bearing one another’s burdens.” — Henry Ward Beecher

• “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard

Funny Thanksgiving quotes

• The average time for eating a Thanksgiving dinner is 12 minutes, which, incidentally, coincides with halftime.” — Erma Bombeck

• “Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.” — Kevin James

• “Hope my relatives are getting along with the professional line sitter I hired to hold my place at the front of the Thanksgiving food line.” — John Lyon

• “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” — Oscar Wilde, "A Woman of No Importance"

• “What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it 'Thanksgiving?'” — Erma Bombeck

• “I’m from Canada, so Thanksgiving to me is just Thursday with more food. And I’m thankful for that.” — Howie Mandel

• “Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.” — Jim Davis

• “Even though we’re a week and a half away from Thanksgiving, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” — Richard Roeper

• “Thanksgiving: when the people who are the most thankful are the ones who didn’t have to cook.” — Melanie White

• “You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out.” — Jay Leno

• “I love spending Thanksgiving surrounded by all these great friends I met in the Best Buy parking lot.” — John Lyon

• “Every Thanksgiving I bring the champagne, because in my family we all know what our strengths are.” — Gloria Fallon

This article was originally published on TODAY.com