22 Insightful Mr. Rogers Quotes To Share With All Your Neighbors

mister rogers

No matter what’s happening in the world, it’s always a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

While many people remember Fred Rogers from his long-running preschool show “Mister Rogers‘ Neighborhood,” Mr. Rogers was a lot more than simply a television host. For many of the children who grew up watching him don his iconic red sweater at the start of every show, Mr. Rogers was a compassionate friend who taught them about love, forgiveness, respect, and the importance of kindness. He passed away in 2003, but his words of wisdom still live on.

In honor of the upcoming film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” out November 22, we’ve put together a list of 22 of our favorite Mr. Rogers quotes.


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1. “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.'”
2. “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.”

3. “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.”

4. “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.”

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


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6. “The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile.”
7. “How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us.”
8. “It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.”
9. “I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline.”
10.”The only thing evil can’t stand is forgiveness.”

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11. “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.'”
12. “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.”
13. “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.”

14. “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem. Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”

15. “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”


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16. “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.”

17. “Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”

18. “As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has- or ever will have- something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”

19. “You can’t really love someone else unless you really love yourself first.”

20. “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.”


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21. “Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”

22. “Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero.”

Mr. Rogers broke a lot of ground during his show’s 33-year run, tackling big issues like racism, inclusion, and learning to accept (and even love) our differences. We’re so lucky to have had Mr. Rogers as our neighbor for all those years. Thankfully, his wisdom lives on in all who read his words and take them to heart.

Share this story to make someone smile today and don’t forget to see “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” on Friday.


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