False Gratitude Quotes

Satan will tempt you with many things in life, but the most powerful is the temptation to be grateful for what you have, when it is not the best life God had to offer you. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Honorifics and meaningless ritual phrases of greeting, leave-taking, permission-asking, and false gratitude, please, thank you, you're welcome, goodbye, fossil relics of primitive hypocrisy - all were stumbling blocks to truthfulness between producer-consumers. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Feeling gratitude isn't born in us - it's something we are taught, and in turn, we teach our children. ~ Joyce Brothers

The illusion of selfhood, ego, a separate identity is false. ~ Frederick Lenz

You could have an experience with the gift of the Holy Ghost today. You could begin a private prayer with thanks. You could start to count your blessings, and then pause for a moment. If you exercise faith, and with the gift of the Holy Ghost, you will find that memories of other blessings will flood into your mind. If you begin to express gratitude for each of them, your prayer may take a little longer than usual. Remembrance will come. And so will gratitude. ~ Henry B. Eyring

Whenever anything is spoken against you that is not true, do not pass by or despise it because it is false; but forthwith examine yourself, and consider what you have said or done that may administer a just occasion of reproof. ~ Plutarch

...I owed her a debt of gratitude. More than gratitude, much more.
I could finally see what had always been there. She had been more than an attendant, more than a friend, more than a sister. She had been a mother to me. She had worried, sought to protect me from danger, guided me toward the best. She had looked out for my future, assessed the worthiness of everyone to be in my life. And in that way, she had taken me as her purpose in life, the one who gave her meaning. I had a constant love all along. And in recognizing that, I felt moved to tears.
"How could you step out of my life?" I told her. "if you do don't join me, I will be lost. No one would worry about me as much as you. No one knows me better, knows my past and what this new life means. I should have told you a long time ago." I became teary-eyed. She kept her lips sealed, but her jaw was trembling. "You are the only loyal person in my life, the only one I can trust."
Tears fell from her eyes. "Now you know. I was always the only one."
"We love each other," I said with a light laugh. "In spite of all the trouble I've given you, you stayed with me. So it must be that you loved me like a mother. ~ Amy Tan

Give thanks. Appreciate what you DO have ... the more we give thanks, the more we receive to be thankful for. Gratitude is the gift that always gives back. ~ Matthew McConaughey

How beautiful a day can be, when kindness touches it! ~ George Elliston

Physical science is like simple addition: it is either infallible or it is false. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God in the measures of the low and showy, not the lofty and simple humanities! Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain. They would not allow this, but follow out what they say, and it comes much to this. Brothers, have you found our king? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There he is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on his bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well. The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were - no, not a truer, for the other is false, but - a true type of our God beside that monstrosity of a monarch. ~ George MacDonald

It's a false premise to say that most monogamous people have chosen monogamy. Most people belong to the religion they were raised in ... because that's what's familiar. That's the milieu they grew up in, and, for better or worse, they're just continuing the pattern. Until this traditionalist mindset is shaken loose, you would likely try from reflex to impose notions onto nonmonogamy that are not only untenable in the new context but spel sudden and messy doom even in situations that otherwise could be worked out. ~ Anthony D. Ravenscroft

When you die, no matter who you are,
you may be remembered for your courage
or despised for your cowardice,
you may be remembered for your gratitude
or despised for your bitterness,
you may be remembered for your benevolence
or despised for your meanness,
you may be remembered for your modesty
or despised for your arrogance,
you may be remembered for your peace
or despised for your violence,
you may be remembered for your compassion
or despised for your ruthlessness,
you may be remembered for your mercy
or despised for your vengeance,
you may be remembered for your love
or despised for your unkindness,
you may be remembered for your strengths
or despised for your weaknesses,
you may be remembered for your virtues
or despised for your unrighteousness,
you may be remembered for your knowledge
or despised for your ignorance,
you may be remembered for your wisdom
or despised for your foolishness,
and you may be remembered for your accomplishments
or despised for your incompetence.

When I die, I want to be remembered
for my smile, not my tears;
for my laughter, not my pain;
for my joy, not my grief;
for my patience, not my anger;
for my friends, not my enemies;
for my mind, not my riches;
for my heart, not my titles;
for my soul, not my achievements;
for my triumphs, not my tragedies; ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet. Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising Zeus the aegis-holder and queenly Hera of Argos who walks on golden sandals and the daughter of Zeus the aegis-holder bright-eyed Athene, and Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis who delights in arrows, and Poseidon the earth-holder who shakes the earth, and reverend Themis and quick-glancing Aphrodite, and Hebe with the crown of gold, and fair Dione, Leto, Iapetus, and Cronos the crafty counsellor, Eos and great Helius and bright Selene, Earth too, and great Oceanus, and dark Night, and the holy race of all the other deathless ones that are for ever. And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the goddesses said to me - the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis: 'Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things'. ~ Hesiod

He looked at her, and she couldn't contradict him. Nor could she offer any false reassurance. Silence, at least, was honest. ~ Tess Gerritsen

We would be false to our trust if we allowed the time it takes to give effect to constitutional rights to be used as the very reason for taking away those rights. ~ Frank Murphy

Remember thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life's burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!
Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me! ~ George Gordon Byron

The word of God is complete, and those who don't preach the word in its fullness are false teachers. ~ Monica Johnson

the false humility of youth that is itself a sort of pride. It ~ George R R Martin

There are times when one's life appears to be a stage. People come, people go. They come in order to go, and go with no intent of return. When they return, they return as one's past. A past that would make you feel that the present is false. ~ Vijay Tendulkar

I have 365-days thankful notes. What a sacred-thanks? ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

For years, I declined to fill in the form for my Senate press credential that asked me to state my 'race,' unless I was permitted to put 'human.' The form had to be completed under penalty of perjury, so I could not in conscience put 'white,' which is not even a color let alone a 'race,' and I sternly declined to put 'Caucasian,' which is an exploded term from a discredited ethnology. Surely the essential and unarguable core of King's campaign was the insistence that pigmentation was a false measure: a false measure of mankind (yes, mankind) and an inheritance from a time of great ignorance and stupidity and cruelty, when one drop of blood could make you 'black. ~ Christopher Hitchens

To have peace in our life we must honour our every MOMENT. Imagine living a full, meaningful and joyous life. Imagine miracles happening all around us. Imagine being filled with awe and gratitude each day, and laying down to sleep each night feeling peaceful and relaxed. We can, if we honour the sacred present in us and around us. Thus we make our lives collectively precious. Every moment is sacred! Being mindful of the sacredness of time encourages us and nurtures our awareness. By honouring every moment, even the "meaningless" ones, we make them sacred ~ Angie Karan

When everything Americans believe is false, our misinformation campaign will be complete. ~ William Casey

Gratitude makes the world a softer, kinder place. It softens that brittle shell of defence. There is always something to be grateful for, no matter how small or simple. ~ Janey Colbourne

Like an attack this melancholy comes from time to time. I don't know at what intervals, and slowly covers my sky with clouds. It begins with an unrest in the heart, with a premonition of anxiety, probably with my dreams at night. People, houses, colors, sounds that otherwise please me become dubious and seem false. Music gives me a headache. All my mail becomes upsetting and contains hidden arrows. At such times, having to converse with people is torture and immediately leads to scenes ... Anger, suffering, and complaints are directed at everything, at people, at animals, at the weather, at God, at the paper in the book one is reading, at the material of the very clothing one has on. But anger, impatience, complaints and hatred have no effect on things and are deflected from everything, back to myself. ~ Hermann Hesse

And he believed it too, believed, in that moment, that the arrow he had made for himself would continue its long upward motion. As if there was no possibility of return, no aphelion or perihelion to chart the long spiral of his orbit around whatever false burning center he had made.
Know this. That the things that go into the fire are forever changed. That all you have ever done can be measured not by distance but by circumference. That these twin spirals of smoke: they are your life, rising in curls. ~ Christian Kiefer

Unless you first do the hard work of answering those questions about a text, your meditations won't be grounded in what God is actually saying in the passage. Something in the passage may "hit" you - but it may hit you as expressing almost the opposite of what the biblical author, inspired by the Spirit, was saying. When that happens, you are listening to your own heart or to the spirit of your own culture, not to God's voice in the Scripture. A great number of books advise "divine reading" of the Bible today, and define the activity uncarefully as reading "not for information but to hear a personal word of God to you." This presents a false contrast. It is certainly true that meditation personalizes the Word, but before we can meditate on what the text personally means to us and our time, we must first need to know as much as possible what the author meant to say to his readers when he wrote it. ~ Timothy Keller

A statement: children who watch violent TV programmes tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programmes? Very likely both are true. Commercial defenders of TV violence argue that anyone can distinguish between television and reality. But Saturday morning children's programmes now average 25 acts of violence per hour. At the very least this desensitizes young children to aggression and random cruelty. And if impressionable adults can have false memories implanted in their brains, what are we implanting in our children when we expose them to some 100,000 acts of violence before they graduate from elementary school? ~ Carl Sagan

R'hllor, come to us in our darkness,' she called. 'Lord of Light, we offer you these false gods, these seven who are one, and him the enemy. Take them and cast your light upon us, for the night is dark and full of terrors. ~ George R R Martin

He watched their faces, and he knew each meant desperately what she said because they loved each other, and deep inside surely each knew the words were false, that the true words were those unspoken. ~ Margaret Craven

Much has been written on the excellence of bats' navigation equipment. It is all false. Tropical bats spend their entire time flying into obstacles with a horrible thudding noise. They specialize in slamming into walls and falling, fluttering onto your face. As my own 'piece of equipment essential for the field' I would strongly recommend a tennis racket; it is devastatingly effective in clearing a room of bats. ~ Nigel Barley

If you do anything well, gratitude is lighter than a feather; if you give offense in anything, people's wrath is as heavy as lead. ~ Plautus

FEAR is an acronym in the English language for 'False Evidence Appearing Real'. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

With Zia's controversial demise in 1988, Jinnah was finally spared the false beard Zia kept pinning on the founder's otherwise clean-shaven face. ~ Nadeem Farooq Paracha

No natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God's hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods. ~ C.S. Lewis

Ask. Trust. Give thanks. Simple right? ~ Dawn Gluskin

Who was the real me? I can only repeat: I was a man of many faces.

At meetings I was earnest, enthusiastic, and committed; among friends, unconstrained and given to teasing; with Marketa, cynical and fitfully witty; and alone (and thinking of Marketa), unsure of myself and as agitated as a schoolboy.

Was the last face the real one?

No. They were all real: I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be. (I was frightened by the differences between one face and the next; none of them seemed to fit me properly, and I groped my way clumsily among them.) ~ Milan Kundera

The terms good and bad indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking or notions, which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf; it is neither good nor bad. ~ Baruch Spinoza

I just called the slaveholder version of Christianity "false." I believe that. But note that in situations of conflict participants view reality differently. The more intractable the conflict, especially where both sides have the capacity to hurt each other, the more difficult it is to determine who is "victim" and who is "oppressor." Think about how nothing is quite as predictable and fruitless as hearing estranged spouses blame each other for being abusive or oppressive. Liberation theology dealt with this perceptual gulf in conflicted situations by speaking of the "epistemological privilege of the poor/oppressed." This meant: the view of the truth of a conflictual situation is clearer from the underside than from the position of power. But this assumes that we know who is on the underside and who holds the power. I am not saying that the exodus-liberation-deliverance motif is invalidated; I am saying that few situations present themselves to us in such clarity as Exod. 1-2 enslavement and infanticide do. ~ David P. Gushee

Hypocrites - they wear gorgeous cloaks lined with lead; pretty outside, awful inside; heavy cloaks force them to behave sedately, although seething within; cloak true character in false appearance. ~ Dante Alighieri

You can't stand in gratitude if you're stuck in victimhood. ~ Robin Sharma

Plato utterly condemns the poets for publishing trivial, false and indeed wicked stories about the gods, such as that they fight with each other, or are overcome by emotions like grief, anger, mirth. Reluctantly, he will not allow Homer in his Republic, and he is very angry with the tragic poets for spreading unworthy ideas of the Deity.

It may well be that there were inferior tragic poets who deserved Plato's strictures, but so far as concerns the tragic poets whom we know, Plato's attack is absurd. It is the attack of a severely intellectual philosopher who was also more of a poet than most poets have contrived to be; one who invented some of the profoundest and most beautiful of Greek myths. 'There is a long-standing quarrel', says Plato, 'between philosophy and poetry.' So there was, on the part of the philosophers, and most of all in Plato's own soul. ~ H.D.F. Kitto

We have this false idea in our culture that if you haven't made it by 30, then you're never going to do anything interesting. My 40s have been the most incredible time of my life. ~ Tracy McMillan

Gratitude produced the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject noxious literature as I have in their capacity to sort out the true from the false in theology, economics, or any other field. ~ William O. Douglas

In moments of surprise we catch at least a glimpse of the joy to which gratefulness opens the door. ~ David Steindl-Rast