Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

We must never pretend appreciation, but if we feel it, then we must express it.

You'll seldom experience regret for anything that you've done. It is what you haven't done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you've lost them forever.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the unselfish motives will follow as we wise up.

On this Valentine's Day, remember that love is a verb. Love, the feeling, is simply the fruit of love, the verb or our loving actions. If you want to strengthen love or rekindle love, love that person through your actions. Sacrifice. Listen with your soul. Empathize. Show appreciation and affirm the one you love. As Mother Teresa said: "If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it."

There’s no doubt about it, appreciation in any form at any time brightens anyone’s existence. And, like a beam of sunlight striking a mirror, the brightness is reflected back at you.

It is literally true, as the thankless say, that they have nothing to be thankful for. He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient. But a thankful heart hath a continual feast.

Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.

Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.

At root, self-pity is a stalling device. It is a temper tantrum, a self-inflicted drama that has little to do, ever, with the facts. Self-pit is not very interested in facts. What it likes is "stories." Self-pity thrives on stories that go, "Poor innocent me and terrible, mean them ..." Self pity likes to make us feel the world is an adversarial place and that the odds are stacked against us. Self-pity likes to point out the way we are never truly appreciated, valued, cherished. What self-pity really wants is a cheering section and a fan club. Although self pity appears to be grounded in the lack of appreciation from others, it is actually grounded in our own discounting of our self and our struggles. A few tears of sorrow over work ill used, a moment of surrender to our genuine fatigue and heartbreak — a little grief can very quickly take the claws out of self-pity's hold on us. When we say, "of course you feel bad," then we are on the brink of something a little interesting. We begin to raise the question "If this makes me feel so bad, what can I change?" and that question snaps us back onto our own creative spine.

If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different person of me.

Brains, like hearts, go where they are appreciated.

Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.

What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it — would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have.

It is good that we should set aside a day in each year for Thanksgiving, but it would be better if we gave thanks every day. For the absence of thankfulness does not mean that we are merely ungrateful — it means that we are missing the thrill of appreciation and pleasure.