Gratitude: Thanksgiving thoughts
This year, we're thankful that a majority of Americans support humane Democratic Party values and returned President Obama to the White House for another four years.
Aside from politics, everyone in America has plenty of reason for gratitude on this day of thanks, because living in the world's richest, freest nation gives citizens advantages that are the envy of the world.
In less-developed lands, many live with constant hunger or ravages of war. Others lack human rights. In contrast, America is a desirable "city on a hill."
As usual, we reprint some wise comments for this holiday:
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"Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness, universal to all ages and all faiths. At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings.... One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness: for the crops carried in from the fields and the grapes from the vineyard." -- J. Robert Moskin, "The Heritage of Judaism," Look magazine, Oct. 5, 1965
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"Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody." -- Samuel Pepys, in his secret diary
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"Food for all is a necessity. Food should not be a merchandise, to be bought and sold as jewels are bought and sold by those who have the money to buy. Food is a human necessity, like water and air, and it should be available." -- Pearl Buck, To My Daughters, With Love
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"Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table." -- Shakespeare, As You Like It
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"The original Thanksgiving was the last time we were nice to the Indians." -- Charleston reformer Bettijane Burger
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"It was dramatic to watch [my grandmother] decapitate [a turkey] with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with 'gourmet' status." -- Russell Baker, The New York Times, Nov. 27, 1985
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"I declare that a meal prepared by a person who loves you will do more good than any average cooking, and on the other side of it, a person who dislikes you is bound to get that dislike into your food, without intending to." -- Luther Burbank, The Harvest of the Years
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"Ever since Eve started it all by offering Adam the apple, woman's punishment has been to have to supply a man with food and then suffer the consequences when it disagrees with him." -- Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men
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"Heap high the board with plenteous cheer, and gather to the feast / and toast the Pilgrim band, whose courage never ceased." -- Alice Williams Brotherton
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"'Twas founded by the Puritans to give thanks for bein' presarved from the Indyans, and ... we keep it to give thanks we are presarved from the Puritans." -- Finley Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley")
***
"The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a common blessing; when a bellyfull was a windfall, and looked like a special providence." -- Charles Lamb
Gratitude: Thanksgiving thoughts
This year, we're thankful that a majority of Americans support humane Democratic Party values and returned President Obama to the White House for another four years.
Aside from politics, everyone in America has plenty of reason for gratitude on this day of thanks, because living in the world's richest, freest nation gives citizens advantages that are the envy of the world.
In less-developed lands, many live with constant hunger or ravages of war. Others lack human rights. In contrast, America is a desirable "city on a hill."
As usual, we reprint some wise comments for this holiday:
***
"Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness, universal to all ages and all faiths. At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings.... One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness: for the crops carried in from the fields and the grapes from the vineyard." -- J. Robert Moskin, "The Heritage of Judaism," Look magazine, Oct. 5, 1965
***
"Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody." -- Samuel Pepys, in his secret diary
***
"Food for all is a necessity. Food should not be a merchandise, to be bought and sold as jewels are bought and sold by those who have the money to buy. Food is a human necessity, like water and air, and it should be available." -- Pearl Buck, To My Daughters, With Love
***
"Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table." -- Shakespeare, As You Like It
***
"The original Thanksgiving was the last time we were nice to the Indians." -- Charleston reformer Bettijane Burger
***
"It was dramatic to watch [my grandmother] decapitate [a turkey] with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with 'gourmet' status." -- Russell Baker, The New York Times, Nov. 27, 1985
***
"I declare that a meal prepared by a person who loves you will do more good than any average cooking, and on the other side of it, a person who dislikes you is bound to get that dislike into your food, without intending to." -- Luther Burbank, The Harvest of the Years
***
"Ever since Eve started it all by offering Adam the apple, woman's punishment has been to have to supply a man with food and then suffer the consequences when it disagrees with him." -- Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men
***
"Heap high the board with plenteous cheer, and gather to the feast / and toast the Pilgrim band, whose courage never ceased." -- Alice Williams Brotherton
***
"'Twas founded by the Puritans to give thanks for bein' presarved from the Indyans, and ... we keep it to give thanks we are presarved from the Puritans." -- Finley Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley")
***
"The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter-state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a common blessing; when a bellyfull was a windfall, and looked like a special providence." -- Charles Lamb
***
"Some people always sigh in thanking God." -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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"Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned / Where all the ruddy family around / Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail / Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale / Or press the bashful stranger to his food / And learn the luxury of doing good." -- Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveler
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"A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink, and be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life." -- Ecclesiastes 8:15
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"The Bible tells us so often to give thanks, to praise God, and to acknowledge all his benefits. Surely it's not that God, like us, needs appreciation for his own well-being. It must be because he knows that when we learn to give thanks, we are learning to concentrate not on the bad things, but in the good things in our lives." -- Amy Vanderbilt, Guideposts magazine, September 1957
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"The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
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"Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of Harvest-home; all is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin." -- Henry Alford
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"When mirth reigns throughout the town, and feasters about the house ... when the tables beside them are laden with bread and meat, and the winebearer draws sweet drink from the mixing-bowl and fills the cups; this I think in my heart to be the most delightful of all to men." -- Homer
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"Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind." -- Homer, The Odyssey
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"There is no love sincerer than the love of food." -- George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
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"What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow." -- A.A. Milne, Not That it Matters
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"A good meal makes a man feel more charitable toward the whole world than any sermon." -- Arthur Pendenys
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"They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet, quaff immortality and joy." -- Milton, Paradise Lost
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"The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat." -- William Ralph Inge, Outspoken Essays
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"So once in every year we throng upon a day apart / to praise the Lord with feast and song in thankfulness of heart." -- Arthur Guiterman
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"Ah! On Thanksgiving Day, when from east and from west / from north and from south come the pilgrim and guest / What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye / what calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie?" -- John Greenleaf Whittier
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