10 morning gratitude quotes for a thankful start

Ten short, source-checked lines about noticing present blessings, welcoming a new day, and beginning with gratitude.

Every attribution below was checked against the cited book or primary-text edition. Wording can vary across editions and translations.

1. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · Source: Essays — First Series, “Friendship”
2. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · Source: Society and Solitude, “Works and Days”
3. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. — Henry David Thoreau · Source: Walden
4. With what infinite faith and promise and moderation begins each new day! — Henry David Thoreau · Source: Journal, Volume II
5. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. — Kahlil Gibran · Source: The Prophet, “On Love”
6. Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. — Charles Dickens · Source: Sketches by Boz, “A Christmas Dinner”
7. The test of all happiness is gratitude. — G. K. Chesterton · Source: Orthodoxy
8. The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. — Robert Louis Stevenson · Source: A Child's Garden of Verses, “Happy Thought”
9. To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. — Walt Whitman · Source: Leaves of Grass, “Miracles”
10. I exist as I am, that is enough. — Walt Whitman · Source: Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself”