Marian Wright Edelman - The Measure of Our Success (1992)

22 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Marian Wright Edelman
The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-itiveness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity.

Marian Wright Edelman
Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

Marian Wright Edelman
Do not feel entitled to anything you do not sweat or struggle for.

Marian Wright Edelman
Service to others is the rent you pay for living on this planet. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.

Marian Wright Edelman
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.

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

Marian Wright Edelman
It is the responsibility of every adult — especially parents, educators, and religious leaders — 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.

Marian Wright Edelman
You can achieve much in life if you don't mind doing the work and giving someone else the credit.

Marian Wright Edelman
There are so many noises and pulls and competing demands in our lives that many of us never find out who we are. Learn to be quiet enough to hear the sound of the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in other people.

Marian Wright Edelman
It doesn't matter how many times you fall down. What matters is how many times you get up.

Marian Wright Edelman
I have always believed that I could help change the world, because I have been lucky to have adults around me who did.

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

Marian Wright Edelman
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.

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

Marian Wright Edelman
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.

Marian Wright Edelman
It is utterly exhausting being Black in America — physically, mentally, and emotionally. While many minority groups and women feel similar stress, there is no respite or escape from your badge of color.

Marian Wright Edelman
Character, self-discipline, determination, attitude and service are the substance of life.

Marian Wright Edelman
It is a spiritually impoverished nation that permits infants and children to be the poorest Americans.

Marian Wright Edelman
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.

Marian Wright Edelman
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.

Marian Wright Edelman