Marian Wright Edelman's Quotes

We have the capacity to make sure that every mother has pre-natal care. Yet, we don't do it. What is it about America? It says we don't value children and families. We are hypocrites.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can't do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.

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.

Semi-automatic weapons have no socially redeeming purpose.

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.

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.

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.

Children under five are the poorest age group in America, and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.

The Declaration of Independence was always our vision of who we wanted to be, our ideal of freedom and justice, how we were going to be different, and what the American experiment was going to be about.

Together we can and must fight for justice for our children and protect them from draconian tax cuts and budget choices that threaten their survival, education and preparation for the future. If they are not ready for tomorrow, neither is America.

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

Education is a precondition to survival in America today.

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

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.

Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.