“If we meet someone who owes us a debt of gratitude, we remember the fact at once. How often we can meet someone to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without thinking of it at all!”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Elective Affinities, 2.4 “From Ottilie’s Journal” (1809) [tr. Hollingdale (1971)]
“So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.”
— Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian Jewish writer
“Investigations of a Dog” (1922)
“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter
Sermons and soda water the day after.”
— George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Don Juan, 2.178 (1819-24)
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”
— Aesop (620?-560? BC) Legendary Greek storyteller
“Androcles,” Fables [tr. Jacobs (1894)]
“Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think,
And at the same time make it sin to drink?
Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus–
Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!”
— Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer
Rubáiyát [tr. Le Gallienne (1897)]
Happy Thanksgiving, all!
