Reader > Reader's Quotes

“You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is lovable. And consequently, the greatest thing we can do is to help somebody know that they are loved and capable of loving.”
― Fred Rogers

“All of us, at some time or other, need help. Whether we’re giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That’s one of the things that connects us as neighbors—in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

“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!”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

“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.”
― Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Neighborly Wit And Wisdom From Mister Rogers

“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.”
― Fred Rogers

“There’s a part of all of us that longs to know that even what’s weakest about us is still redeemable and can ultimately count for something good.”
― Fred Rogers, Life's Journeys According to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember Along the Way

“There are times when explanations, no matter how reasonable, just don't seem to help.”
― Fred Rogers, Life's Journeys According to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember Along the Way

“Imagine what our real neighbors would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person. There have been so many stories about the lack of courtesy, the impatience of today's world, road rage and even restaurant rage. Sometimes, all it takes is one kind word to nourish another person. Think of the ripple effect that can be created when we nourish someone. One kind empathetic word has a wonderful way of turning into many.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

“Listening and trying to understand the needs of those we would communicate with seems to me to be the essential prerequisite of any real communication. And we might as well aim for real communication.”
― Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Neighborly Wit And Wisdom From Mister Rogers

“One of the strongest things I have had to wrestle with in my life is the significance of the longing for perfection in oneself and in the people bound to the self by friendship or parenthood or childhood.”
― Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Neighborly Wit And Wisdom From Mister Rogers

“I don’t think we give that gift anymore (the gift of silence). I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. In noise, rather than silence…how do we encourage reflection? Oh my, this is a noisy world. I get up every morning at least by 5AM. I have a couple hours of quiet time, reflect about what it is important. What can we do, to encourage people to have more quiet in their lives, more silence? Real revelation comes through silence.”
― Fred Rogers

“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.”
― Fred Rogers, Life's Journeys According to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember Along the Way

“We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.”
― Fred Rogers, Life's Journeys According to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember Along the Way

“Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.”
― Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages from a Beloved Neighbor

“We get so wrapped up in numbers in our society. The most important thing is that we are able to be one-to-one, you and I with each other at the moment. If we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with, that's what's important.”
― Fred Rogers

“All our lives, we rework the things from our childhood, like feeling good about ourselves, managing our angry feelings, being able to say good-bye to people we love.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

“Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else. I've felth that many times. My hope for all of us is that "the miles we go before we sleep" will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring - delight, sadness, joy, wisdom - and that in all the endings of our life, we will be able to see the new beginnings.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

“It always helps to have people we love beside us when we have to do difficult things in life. —FRED ROGERS”
― Maxwell King, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
― Alan Watts

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
― Alan Watts

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
― Alan Wilson Watts, The Culture of Counter-Culture: Edited Transcripts

“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”
― Alan Watts

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”
― Alan Watts

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
― Alan Watts

“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

“The menu is not the meal.”
― Alan Watts