Quotes by Fred Rogers

If you're trusted and people will allow you to share their inner gardern... what better gift?

There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.

You can choose to let this thing bother you or let this be an adventure and welcome the challenge.

Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

I believe that those of us who are the producers and purveyors of television, I believe that we are the servants of this nation.

To grow up to be healthy, very young children do not need to know how to read, but they need to know how to play.

There have always been times when children wished for superhuman powers. Cave children probably pretended to be superhunters, just as children today pretend about being superstrong or superfast.

Caring is not what a powerful person gives to a weaker one. Caring is a matter of being there...lamenting right along with the one who laments.

I believe that the basis of any health education lies in a person's caring enough about himself that he'll want to take care of himself.

Grandparents are both our past and our future. In some ways they are what has gone before, and in others they are what we will become.

Grandparents can be very special resources. Just being close to them reassures a child, without words, about change and continuity, about what went before and what will come after.

The way you would draw a tree is different from the way anyone else would draw a tree -- and that's the way it's supposed to be.

When we talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.

Hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.

Just because somebody wants to be alone sometimes, it doesn't mean they don't love you.

If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then, I believe, we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what 'good' parenting means.

I've often hesitated in beginning a project because I've thought, 'It'll never turn out to be even remotely like the good idea I have as I start.' I could just 'feel' how good it could be. but I decided that, for the present, I would create the best way I know how and accept the ambiguities.

I don't think that the basics that kids need have changed in 10,000 years.

Out of difference can come the reinforcement of two important values. One is tolerance and the other is awareness that people who disagree over the things they hold dear really can live together in love and respect.

Propel, propel, propel your craft softly down liquid solution. Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, Existence is simply illusion.

It may take months or years for a wish to come true, but it's far more likely to happen when you care so much about a wish that you'll do all you can to make it happen.

I went into television because I hated it so, and I thought there's some way of using this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen.

I've always wanted to have a neighbor just like you. I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

My friendship with Mitzi was like the friendship that many children have with their pets. My mother and father thought it was good for me to have a dog for a companion. Well it was good for me, but it was only many years after she died that I began to understand how good it was, and why.

Pretending doesn't require expensive toys.

It's the people we love the most who can make us feel the gladdest ... and the maddest! Love and anger are such a puzzle!

There's no should or should not when it comes to having feelings. They're part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings.

The child is in me still and sometimes not so still.

No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation. Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy and life and hope and faith and pardon and love to your neighbor and to yourself.

When we treat children's play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that's to be found in the creative spirit. We're helping ourselves stay in touch with that spirit, too. It's the things we play withand the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.

Children who have learned to be comfortably dependent can become not only comfortably independent but also comfortable with having people depend on them. They can lean, stand, and be leaned upon, because they know what a good feeling it can be to feel needed.

What do you think it is that drives people to want far more than they could ever use or need? I frankly think it's insecurity. How do we let the world know that the trappings of this life are not the things that are ultimately important for being accepted?

Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning...They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play.

I feel that the real drama of life is never center stage, it's always in the wings. It's never with the spotlight on, it's usually something that you don't expect at all.

Whether we're a preschooler or a young teen, a graduating college senior or a retired person, we human beings all want to know that we're acceptable, that our being alive somehow makes a difference in the lives of others.

Our worlds needs more time to wonder and reflect but there is too much fast paced constant distraction.

Parents don't come full bloom at the birth of the first baby. In fact parenting is about growing. It's about our own growing as much as it is about our children's growing and that kind of growing happens little by little.

What really matters is not just our own winning but helping other people to win, too.

If we can bring our children understanding, comfort, and hopefulness when they need this kind of support, then they are more likely to grow into adults who can find these resources within themselves later on. (from the introduction).

My hunch is that if we allow ourselves to give who we really are to the children in our care, we will in some way inspire cartwheels in their hearts.

Mutual caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other's achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain.

Perhaps we think that we won't find another human being inside that person. Perhaps we think that there are some people in this world who I can't ever communicate with, and so I'll just give up before I try. And how sad it is to think that we would give up on any other creature who's just like us.

I think it's very important -- no matter what you may do professionally -- to keep alive some of the healthy interests of your youth. Children's play is not just kids' stuff. Children's play is rather the stuff of most future inventions.

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

I believe it's a fact of life that what we have is less important than what we make out of what we have.

A love of learning has a lot to do with learning that we are loved.

It is our continuing love for our children that makes us want them to become all they can be, and their continuing love for us that helps them accept healthy discipline -- from us and eventually from themselves.

Kids can spot a phony a mile away.

We all have only one life to live on Earth, and through television we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways.

Life is deep and simple, and what our society gives us is shallow and complicated.

When we leave our child in nursery school for the first time, it won't be just our child's feelings about separation that we will have to cope with, but our own feelings as well-from our present and from our past, parents are extra vulnerable to new tremors from old earthquakes.

I'm proud of you for the times you came in second, or third, or fourth, but what you did was the best you have ever done.

The purpose of life is to listen -- to yourself, to your neighbor, to your world and to God and, when the time comes, to respond in as helpful a way as you can find ... from within and without.

How many times have you noticed that it's the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?

There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

Love and trust, in the space between what's said and what's heard in our life, can make all the difference in the world.

Try your best to make goodness attractive. That's one of the toughest assignments you'll ever be given.

Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I'm concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying 'I love you' is being a receptive listener.

Love is like infinity: You can't have more or less infinity, and you can't compare two things to see if they're equally infinite. Infinity just is, and that's the way I think love is, too.

Fame is a four-letter word; and like tape or zoom or face or pain or life or love, what ultimately matters is what we do with it.

The greatest gift that you can give another person is to gracefully receive whatever it is that they want to give us.

To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

There's a world of difference between insisting on someone's doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it.

If it's mentionable, it's manageable.

Anything mentionable is manageable.

I like you just the way you are.

Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered ... just one kind word to another person.

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you.

If the grain of wheat could know fear, it would be paralyzed with anxiety at the thought of being dropped in the ground, covered over, put out of sight, doomed to inactivity, yet what a glorious harvest awaits it!

When we look for what's best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does, so in appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred.

In my own life, as the nearer I get to the end of life on this earth, the simpler I want to become.

I'm fairly convinced that the Kingdom of God is for the broken-hearted. You write of 'powerlessness.' Join the club, we are not in control. God is.

The kingdom of God is for the broken hearted.

Real strength has to do with helping others.

It's not the honors and not the titles and not the power that is of ultimate importance. It's what resides inside.

I feel the greatest gift we can give to anybody is the gift of our honest self.

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.

What matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win too. Even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.

I recently learned that in an average lifetime a person walks about sixty-five thousand miles. That's two and a half times around the world. I wonder where your steps will take you. I wonder how you'll use the rest of the miles you're given.

The space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground.

We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.

Those of us who are in this world to educate-to care for-young children have a special calling: a calling that has very little to do with the collection of expensive possessions but has a lot to do with worth inside of heads and hearts.

There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.

Play is really the work of childhood.

Love isn't a perfect state of caring.

I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers -- so many caring people in this world.

Transitions are almost always signs of growth, but they can bring feelings of loss. To get somewhere new, we may have to leave somewhere else behind.

For a couple with young children, divorce seldom comes as a solution to stress, only as a way to end one form of pain and accept another.

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.

You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.

It's a miracle when we finally discover whom we're best equipped to serve.

Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal.

Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.

The number 143 means 'I love you.' It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say 'love' and three letters to say 'you.' One hundred and forty-three. 'I love you.' Isn't that wonderful?

When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.

Parents find many different ways to work their way through the assertiveness of their two-year-olds, but seeing that assertiveness as positive energy being directed toward growth as a competent individual may open up some new possibilities.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine; could you be mine?

Vermont is a small state which makes an enormous difference.

Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past.

If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.

When I was a boy I used to think that strong meant having big muscles, great physical power; but the longer I live, the more I realize that real strength has much more to do with what is not seen. Real strength has to do with helping others.

I just feel that there isn't enough silence, and I'm always asking people if they can just give some silence.

Often out of periods of losing come the greatest strivings toward a new winning streak.

I'm proud of you. I hope that you are proud of you too.

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.

Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service.

Please think of the children first. If you ever have anything to do with their entertainment, their food, their toys, their custody, their child care, their health care, their education -- listen to the children, learn about them, learn from them. Think of the children first.

We want to raise our children so that they can take a sense of pleasure in both their own heritage and the diversity of others.

It's not possible to be a parent without having times of worry.

All of our growth is rooted in the firm trust that all of those who first cared about us maintained.

One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation.

What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.

When your heart has room for everybody then your heart is full of love.

People wear all sorts of things, but the best part is the part that's on the inside. That's what's really you -- the person inside.

I hope you're able to grow to respect whoever you are inside.

Feeling good about ourselves is essential in our being able to love others.

We all have negative urges, but we don't have to act out those urges.

Anger makes us feel so isolated.

Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.

Deep down, we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too.

The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile.

Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.

It's important to give up -- maybe daily -- the longing to be perfect…what a heavy burden.

You're much more than your job description or your age or your income or your output.

You are a very special person. There is only one like you in the whole world. There's never been anyone exactly like you before, and there will never be again. Only you. And people can like you exactly as you are.

You're certainly somebody that people can love.

You can't really love someone else unless you really love yourself first.

Honesty is often very hard. The truth is often painful. But the freedom it can bring is worth the trying.

Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.

How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us.

You know, you don't have to look like everybody else to be acceptable and to feel acceptable.

I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.

I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline.