Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.

Jowett argues that thankfulness is not an optional ornament of religious life but a vital “ligament” binding the virtues together. Without gratitude, love becomes thin and passionless; hope loses its capacity to see goodness ahead; faith becomes brittle, lacking the resilience to endure trial. The culminating image—virtue “maimed” and limping—suggests that moral excellence can exist in name while being functionally impaired when severed from gratitude. The quote thus frames thankfulness as a spiritual faculty that both recognizes grace and generates energy for ethical action, turning abstract virtues into lived, resilient dispositions.