Marian Wright Edelman Quotes

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.

The question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child; it is whether we can afford not to.

Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.

You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.

Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

It's time for greatness - not for greed. It's a time for idealism - not ideology. It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action.

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people's children.

A nation that does not stand for its children does not stand for anything and will not stand tall in the future.

Be a good ancestor. Stand for something bigger than yourself. Add value to the Earth during your sojourn.

This act will leave a moral blot on his presidency

Don't just dream about grandiose acts of doing good. Every day do small ones, that add up over time to positive patterns.

Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for.

Be real. Try to do what you say, say what you mean, and be what you seem.

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.

It is the responsibility of every adult... to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone.

You are in charge of your own attitude whatever others do or circumstances you face. The only person you can control is yourself...worry more about your attitude than your aptitude or lineage.

You can't be what you can't see.

Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right.

No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.

It really takes a community to raise children, no matter how much money one has. Nobody can do it well alone. And it's the bedrock security of community that we and our children need.

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back - but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.

Why are guns the only unregulated consumer products in America? We regulate toy guns and teddy bears, but we do not regulate a product that kills 4,600 children a year.

Service is the rent we pay for living.

We do not have a money problem in America. We have a values and priorities problem.

Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place.

Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night.

Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.

We're spending, on average, three times more for prison than for public-school pupils. That's the dumbest investment policy. It doesn't make us safer.

If parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.

There comes a time when you roll up your sleeves and put yourself at the top of your commitment list.

I'm doing what I think I was put on this earth to do. And I'm really grateful to have something that I'm passionate about and that I think is profoundly important.

The legacy I want to leave is a child-care system that says that no kid is going to be left alone or left unsafe.

You'd better stay determined, because that's how our ancestors got us where we are.

There should not be one new dime in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires as long as millions of children in America are poor, hungry, uneducated and without health coverage.

No time is ever wasted if you have a book along as a companion.

We must serve consciously as caring role models, emphasizing the ethic of service, not consumption.

Education is a precondition to survival in America today.

It is [children] who are God's presence, promise and hope for mankind.

I never thought I was breaking a glass ceiling. I just had to do what I had to do, and it never occurred to me not to.

People who don't vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.

There are levels of outrage, and there's a point at which you can't be trespassed upon anymore.

You just do it one step at a time.

In every seed of good there is always a piece of bad.

You really can change the world if you care enough.

So often we are depressed by what remains to be done and forget to be thankful for all that has been done.

Be grateful for good breaks and kind favors but don't count on them.