Here are some quotes from literature about being thankful.
The best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you. ~ The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
For his part, every beauty of art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as for any other worldly blessing. ~ Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
I admire machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. ~ Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens