Fred Rogers Quotes

"A high school student wrote to ask, "What was the greatest event in American history?" I can't say. However, I suspect that like so many "great" events, it was something very simple and very quiet with little or no fanfare (such as someone forgiving someone else for a deep hurt that eventually changed the course of history). The really important "great" things are never center stage of life's dramas; they're always "in the wings". That's why it's so essential for us to be mindful of the humble and the deep rather than the flashy and the superficial."

In fact, from the time you were very little, you've had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving.

Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that...to show and tell what the good in life is all about.

But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own — by treating our 'neighbor' at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.

Who in your life has been such a servant to you? Who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life, those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight - just ten seconds of silence.

No matter where they are, either here or in heaven, imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now.

A friend of mine was in a taxi in Washington, D.C., going slowly past the National Archives, when he noticed the words on the cornerstone of the building: “The past is prologue.” He read them out loud to the taxi driver and said, “What do you think that means, ‘The past is prologue’?” The taxi driver said, “I think it means, ‘Man, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

People have said “Don’t cry” to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is “I’m too uncomfortable when you show your feelings: don’t cry.” I’d rather have them say, “Go ahead and cry. I’m here to be with you.

All we’re ever asked to do in this life is to treat our neighbor — especially our neighbor who is in need — exactly as we would hope to be treated ourselves. That’s our ultimate responsibility.

Pretending doesn't require expensive toys.

Love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love or the lack of it.

"When I think of Robert Frost's poems, like "The Road Not Taken", I feel the support of someone who is on my side, who understands what life's choices are like, someone who says, "I've been there, and it's okay to go on"."

I wonder if we might pledge ourselves to remember what life is really all about — not to be afraid that we're less flashy than the next, not to worry that our influence is not that of a tornado, but rather that of a grain of sand in an oyster! Do we have that kind of patience?

I remember one of my seminary professors saying people who were able to appreciate others — who looked for what was good and healthy and kind — were about as close as you could get to God — to the eternal good. And those people who were always looking for what was bad about themselves and others were really on the side of evil. “That’s what evil wants,” he would say. “Evil wants us to feel so terrible about who we are and who we know, that we’ll look with condemning eyes on anybody who happens to be with us at the moment.” I encourage you to look for the good where you are and embrace it.

You can think about things and make believe. All you have to do is think and they'll grow.

I think that those who would try to make you feel less than who you are, I think that's the greatest evil.

It’s easy to convince people that children need to learn the alphabet and numbers. . . . How do we help people to realize that what matters even more than the superimposition of adult symbols is how a person’s inner life finally puts together the alphabet and numbers of his outer life? What really matters is whether he uses the alphabet for the declaration of war or the description of a sunrise — his numbers for the final count at Buchenwald or the specifics of a brand-new bridge.

The media shows the tiniest percentage of what people do. There are millions and millions of people doing wonderful things all over the world, and they’re generally not the ones being touted in the news.