"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."
— Thomas Paine

""Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house."
— Terry Pratchett (Witches Abroad)

"You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

"When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place."
— C.S. Lewis

"For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god."
— John O'Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Invocations and Blessings)

"May we be strengthened with the understanding that being blessed does not mean that we shall always be spared all the disappointments and difficulties of life."
— Heber J. Grant

"Blessings sometimes show up in unrecognizable disguises. "
— Janette Oke

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."
— Eric Hoffer

"At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"I will only add, God bless you.
-Fitzwilliam Darcy"
— Jane Austen

"O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
— Francis Scott Key

"Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayer and worn with thanks."
— Thomas Goodwin