Marian Wright Edelman Quotes (36 Quotes)

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

If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans.

My faith has been the driving thing of my life. I think it is important that people who are perceived as liberals not be afraid of talking about moral and community values.

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.

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

Service is what life is all about.

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.

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?

Service to others is the rent you pay for living on this planet.

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

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.

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

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

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

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 are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home and the most to institutionalize him.

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

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.

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

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.

You didn't have a choice about the parents you inherited, but you do have a choice about the kind of parent you will be.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.

Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.

Remember and help America remember that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender in a democratic society.

Education is a precondition to survival in America today.

Amidst protestations of 'Who can be against the children' too few people are FOR children when it really matters.

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

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

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.

Somehow we are going to have to develop a concept of enough for those at the top and at the bottom so that the necessities of the many are not sacrificed for the luxuries of the few.

You really can change the world if you care enough.

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

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

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.