Fred Rogers Giving Quotations

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

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

The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self.

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

I believe that at the center of the universe there dwells a loving spirit who longs for all that’s best in all of creation, a spirit who knows the great potential of each planet as well as each person, and little by little will love us into being more than we ever dreamed possible. That loving spirit would rather die than give up on any one of us.

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?

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.

Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we are not perfect.

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

Feelings about money -- saving and spending, holding back and letting go -- start very early in our lives. Stingy people have often been forced to give when they were very, very young, when they weren't ready. And generous people have often been really appreciated when they were very young.

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

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.

Parenting forces us to get to know ourselves better than we ever might have imagined we could--and in many new ways. . . . We'll discover talents we never dreamed we had and fervently wish for others at moments we feel we desperately need them. As time goes on, we'll probably discover that we have more to give and can give more than we ever imagined. But we'll also find that there are limits to our giving, and that may be hard for us to accept.

Of course, I get angry. Of course, I get sad. I have a full range of emotions. I also have a whole smorgasbord of ways of dealing with my feelings. That is what we should give children. Give them ... ways to express their rage without hurting themselves or somebody else. That's what the world needs.