Robert Fulghum Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game? Do we still have what it takes to find a better way?

Robert Fulghum
Above all, if what you've done is stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid.

Robert Fulghum
My own movement of thought is not meant to be a straight point-to-point, linear line of march, but horizontal exploration from one area of interest to another. There is no ultimate destination - no finish line to cross, no final conclusion to be reached. It's the way I feel about dancing - you move around a lot, not to get somewhere, but to be somewhere in time.

Robert Fulghum
I don't think the thing is to be well known, but being worth knowing.

Robert Fulghum
I recall an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one wish by God. The man said he would like to go about doing good without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to all human beings.
And so it has been to this day.

Robert Fulghum
If you do not join the dancing you will feel foolish. So why not dance? And i will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. if you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there.

Robert Fulghum
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - that myth is more potent than history. I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts - that hope always triumphs over experience - that laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.

Robert Fulghum
Infinite possibility in all things is a certainty. That pretty much covers theology and philosophy for me.

Robert Fulghum
I don't do art to address other people but to address myself. I've never done art with a thought of being a professional artist who makes a living by selling his art. I've never had a commercial show in a gallery. I suppose I'm like those who write poetry or songs without seeking publication. I make art in and for the experience itself — to satisfy a need to express myself in a creative, colorful, non-verbal way.

Robert Fulghum
If you tell people you talk to God, they'll think you're religious, but if you say God talks to you, it's ten to one they'll think you're crazy.

Robert Fulghum
The Indian danced on alone. The crowd clapped up the beat. The Indian danced with a chair. The crowd went crazy. The band faded. The crowd cheered. The Indian held up his hands for silence as if to make a speech. Looking at the band and then the crowd, the Indian said, "Well, what're you waiting for? Let's DANCE.

Robert Fulghum
Only an open mind still has room for new knowledge. What is outgrown and used up must be discarded to make room for what is yet to be learned. And much of the best thinking is done alone-in deserts, on beaches, in bed, behind closed doors. It is why we say we need to get away-to escape from clutter and busyness-to hear ourselves think.

Robert Fulghum
The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.

Robert Fulghum
You can't always explain everything you do to everybody, you know.

Robert Fulghum
Once you know where the roller coaster is going, are you in for the ride?

Robert Fulghum
The kindergarten essay got into that underground press we all belong to where something just sort of has a life of its own and moves around and it gets on refrigerators and in the work place and people copy it... I was a minister in the Unitarian church at the time and teaching and I was ready to stop that and do the next phase of my life. So I had quit both those jobs and I was all set up with my studio in Seattle when this other horse came riding by … I'm not a great writer and I'll never get the Nobel Prize or a Pulitzer Prize but I've won the refrigerator door award. And you don't see Faulkner on people's refrigerator.

Robert Fulghum
If we could just figure out how to have more fun at it, maybe more of us would join the ranks of those who seek after justice and mercy.

Robert Fulghum
The older I get, the more I realize the importance of exercising the various dimensions of my body, soul, mind and heart. Taken together, these aspects give me a sense of wholeness. I want to be a whole human being rather than one who limps on one leg because I don't know how to use all of my parts. Intellectual, emotional, and physical activity are not separate entities. Rather, they are dimensions of the same human being.

Robert Fulghum
Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this "something" cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It's what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn't count it. Nothing counts without it.

Robert Fulghum
We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be.

Robert Fulghum
To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level.

Robert Fulghum
Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that's worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn't even come close to answering the question "What do you do?"

Robert Fulghum
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup-they all die. So do we.

Robert Fulghum
Arguing whether or not a God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name for God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

Robert Fulghum
From the first day we are told in words we can handle what has come to be prized as the foundation of community and culture. Though the teacher may call these first lessons simple rules, they are in fact the distillation of all the hard-won, field-tested working standards of the human enterprise.

Robert Fulghum