Thanksgiving Quotes and Prayers Bless Holiday Meal

Prayers on Thanksgiving have traditionally been led by community or religious leaders to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. At home, families often begin a Thanksgiving meal with a special remembrance saying grace for blessings both big and small. Thanksgiving prayers and quotes to inspire this day of thanks are great ways to spread the word about the many things we have to be thankful for.

It has been a centuries-old tradition of giving thanks that the Pilgrims sat down with the Wampanoag Indians for the first historic American Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Giving thanks is something we should all do on a daily basis and Thanksgiving Day has become widely known as the day everyone gathers to express these sentiments to family and friends.

Find an wide variety of prayers on the web to share with family and friends on this thankful day.

Thanksgiving Prayer - The origins of giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day with tips on creating your own personal prayer, suggested Bible verses, a children's Thanksgiving prayer, quotes & literary references.

Children's Thanksgiving Prayers - A collection just for kids, and scroll down to the bottom of the page for lots of related resources.

Top 100 Thanksgiving Prayers for Thanksgiving or Any Day - Classic prayers, Bible quotes, poems and more with related resources.

Catholic Prayers of Thanksgiving - Dozens of before or after mealtime prayers in an alphabetical list.

Jewish Prayers: Blessings over Meals - Traditional mealtime prayers & rituals in English and Hebrew.

Send an e-card, email or use a Thanksgiving quote on Twitter or at the Thanksgiving Day dinner table to inspire or entertain:

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

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. ~Meister Eckhart

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude. ~E.P. Powell

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, The First Thanksgiving

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude! ~Henry Ward Beecher

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow. ~Edward Sandford Martin

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
~Alexander Pope

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, "No One Diets on Thanksgiving," 26 November 1981

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action. ~W.J. Cameron

Happy Thanksgiving to all and enjoy sharing a prayer or a quote with family and friends.

More prayers and blessings for Thanksgiving.