And now, with another Thanksgiving weekend winding down, some final thoughts on giving thanks:

"It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouchsafing for us unto in His mercy, many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household.

"It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes, as our soldiers in their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and immigration, while he has ... crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry, with abundant rewards.

"Moreover he has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage and resolution, sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and affiliations."

- Abraham Lincoln, 1863

"Over the river and through the wood, to have a first-rate play.

Hear the bells ring, Ting-a-ling-ling!

Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river and through the wood, Trot fast, my dapple gray!

Spring over the ground

Like a hunting hound,

For this is Thanksgiving Day. ..."

- Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), author and abolitionist

"Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often."

- Johnny Carson

"O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."

- William Shakespeare

"Come ye thankful people come,

Raise the song of harvest home!

All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin;"

- Henry Alford (1810-1871)

"I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy."

- Anne Frank

"Now thank we all our God,

With heart and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things has done,

In whom this world rejoices;"

- Martin Rinkart (1586-1649)

"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;

He chastens and hastens his will to make known;

The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing ..."

- 15th century Dutch folk hymn

Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries, has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.

- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

"Thanksgiving Day originated in New England ... when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for - annually, not oftener - if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments."

- Mark Twain

"Have a safe Thanksgiving weekend, what's left of it!"

- Joe Kirby, 2009

Joe Kirby is Editorial Page Editor of the Marietta Daily Journal and co-author of the just-published "Marietta Revisited: Then & Now."