Crazy Uncle Ryan's favorite quotes


"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."— Arthur C. Clarke

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
-President George Washington
October 3, 1789

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
-President Abraham Lincoln
October 3, 1863

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.
-H.U. Westermayer

A GRATEFUL HEART
With a grateful heart on Thanksgiving Day,
I see all the blessings that have come to me;
and I know no words could ever say to thee,
how grateful my heart is on Thanksgiving Day.

I didn't earn these blessings, no not one gift,
yet you continue to send them forth my way.
So all that I can give, I give to thee today,
to thee my grateful heart is my greatest gift.
-Ryan O'Berry
Thanksgiving Day 1999*

To the three or four of you who occasionally stumble by accident on to this blog; Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours and may we all be a little better at remembering to be grateful for all the blessings we have.


*©1999 Ryan O'Berry. Please do not copy.

1 comment:

  1. I love the things you have collected to post here! And thanks for the ones you shared with my family.

    ReplyDelete