Robert Fulghum Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

Wherever and however any one of us may be conceived, it is the same. We come into being in the arms of God.

Robert Fulghum
Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don't forget.

Robert Fulghum
Almost anything can be dealt with if people are of good will and light hearts and strong values.

Robert Fulghum
Even the finest workman needs to inspect his work critically.

Robert Fulghum
Do you ever go off with a long grocery list and come home from the store with a bunch of different stuff? And somebody in the family unsacks the groceries and wants to know why you got this and didn't get that and just where is the whatever? And you want to say, 'Well, just be glad I came back, okay?' And the unpacker says, 'Well, next time bring what's on the list.'

Robert Fulghum
It's hard to explain the cost and consequences of environmental pollution and destruction to a six year old. But we are paying a desperate price even now because adults did not heed the instructions of kindergarten: Clean up your own mess; put things back where you found them; don't take what's not yours.

Robert Fulghum
Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, something you give away.

Robert Fulghum
Manuals have their uses... but they are not to be confused with living.

Robert Fulghum
Knowledge is meaningful only if it is reflected in action. The human race has found out the hard way that we are what we do, not just what we think. This is true for kids and adults — for schoolrooms and nations.

Robert Fulghum
I often say that I don't worry about the meaning of life-I can't handle that big stuff. What concerns me is the meaning in life-day by day, hour by hour, while I'm doing whatever it is I do. What counts is not what I do, but how I think about myself while I'm doing it.

Robert Fulghum
Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air — explode softly — and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth — boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap either — not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death. A child who touched one wouldn't have his hand blown off.

Robert Fulghum
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are — when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Robert Fulghum
You want my opinion? We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love.

Robert Fulghum
Speed and efficiency do not always increase the quality of life.

Robert Fulghum
Weddings seem to be magnets for mishap and for whatever craziness lurks in family closets. In more ways than one, weddings bring out the ding-dong on everybody involved.

Robert Fulghum
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have - I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change somethings in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.

Robert Fulghum
To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that place.
To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of things.
To do these things is to make fairy tales come true.

Robert Fulghum
Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. There is too much evidence to the contrary.

Robert Fulghum
What we learn in kindergarten comes up again and again in our lives as long as we live. In far more complex, polysyllabic forms, to be sure. In lectures, encyclopedias, bibles, company rules, courts of law, sermons, and handbooks. Life will examine us continually to see if we have understood and have practiced what we were taught that first year of school.

Robert Fulghum
All of these are names given me by other people, but not names I would have given myself. My name is not mine, it's theirs. It's a series of costumes put on my life by other people.

Robert Fulghum
There's another thing not everyone figures out right away: It's almost impossible to go through life all alone. We need to find our support group — family, friends, companion, therapy gatherings, team, church or whatever. The kindergarten admonition applies as long as we live: When you go out into the world, hold hands and stick together. It's dangerous out there — lonely, too. Everyone needs someone. Some assembly is always required.

Robert Fulghum
You will continue to read stories of crookedness and corruption - of policemen who lie and steal, doctors who reap where they do not sew, politicians on the take. Don't be misled. They are news because they are the exceptions.

Robert Fulghum
It doesn't matter what you say you believe — it only matters what you do.

Robert Fulghum
I'd like to speak a foreign language well enough to get the jokes. I'd like to talk with Socrates, and watch Michelangelo sculpt David. I'd like to see the world as it was a million years ago and a million years hence.

Robert Fulghum
There is nothing in your budget for joy. No books, no flowers, no music, not even a cold beer. And there is nothing in your budget to give away to someone else. We don't help people who don't have better values than you do.

Robert Fulghum