50 Mister Rogers Quotes That Will Make You Feel Better About the World

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

November 12, 2020

Whether it was on your TV screen or in front of a room full of U.S. lawmakers, Fred Rogers, who passed in 2003, always had a way with words. In his show, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the gentle host used music, puppets, and kindness to teach valuable lessons to children everywhere. From inspirational commencement speeches to uplifting one-on-one interviews, he had boundless wisdom to impart to adults, too. In 1969, Rogers also spoke against a Senate Subcommittee's proposal to decrease funding for public television, which is only one of the many ways he advocated for the potential of entertainment to impact a child's development. Keep reading to be reminded of some of the most heartfelt and moving Mister Rogers quotes ever. His honesty and positivity may be just what you need to hear right now.

"Often, when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else."
"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."
"There are times when explanations, no matter how reasonable, just don't seem to help."
"The real issue in life is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them. Some have few and give everything away."
"Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness."
"Because deep down we know that 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."
"The things that are center-staged are rarely the things that are most important. It's usually what happens in the wing."
"It doesn't matter what our particular job, we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen."
"The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self."
*speaking to the Senate* "And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we would have done a great service to mental health."
"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.'"
*On Mister Rogers' Neighborhood* "I give an expression of care to each child to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying 'you've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you.'"
"So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we are participating in something extremely sacred."
"Because I see that people who are not the fancy people of this world are the ones who seem to nourish my soul. And I want to learn how to be the best receiver that I can ever be. Because I think graceful receiving is one of the most wonderful gifts we can give anybody."
"Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime's work, but it's worth the effort."
"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."

"Anyone who has ever been able to sustain good work has had at least one person, and often many, who have believed in him or her."
"You can't really love someone else unless you really love yourself first."
"I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex."
"It's not so much what we have in this life that matters. It's what we do with what we have."
"Who would have ever dreamed that a simple offering could be used in so many wonderful ways."
*On his wife Joanne Rogers* "Sometimes, when we disagree, I feel frustrated. But I never forget how lucky I am to have you and my family."
"Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun, like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now."
"Try your best to make goodness attractive. That's one of the toughest assignments you'll ever be given."
"We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are."
"Love is the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love or the lack of it."

"Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me."
"What really nourishes our souls is the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the foundation of our being is good stuff."
"You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are,"
"The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that's what heaven is."
"We don't always succeed in what we try, certainly not by the world's standards, but I think that you'll find that it's the willingness to keep trying that matters most."
"Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we are not perfect."
"Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people."
"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."
"Peace means far more than the opposite of war."
"The only thing evil can't stand is forgiveness.
"We speak with more than our mouths. We listen with more than our ears."
"You're much more than your job description or your age or your income or your output."
"Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn't have to be a lonely kind of thing."

"One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation."
"Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends."
"In a way, you've already won in this world because you're the only one that can be you."
"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 feelings.'"
"Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel."
"I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline."
"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."
"The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile."
"In my own life, as the nearer I get to the end of life on this earth, the simpler I want to become."
"You know, you don't have to look like everybody else to be acceptable and to feel acceptable."
"Feeling good about ourselves is essential in our being able to love ourselves."