Recently Read:The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers

The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember by Fred Rogers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

SRP Why Bite: Insightful.

There is not much to say about this short, little book. Fred Rogers was a smart, insightful man who said a number of wise, smart, and insightful things. I’m surprised the book isn’t longer. I enjoyed learning a little bit more about Mister Fred McFeely Rogers from the Foreward written by his wife and the short biography at the end of the book. Did you know Mr. McFeely, the postman was named after his grandfather? I didn’t. My only other comment is that I’ve never read a book of quotes before that included the person quoting other people. I found this a little odd, but since I liked the quotes (and the individuals Mister Rogers quoted) it didn’t affect my enjoyment one iota.

Quotes I liked:

“The values we care about the deepest, and the movements within society that support those values, command our love. When those things that we care about so deeply become endangered, we become enraged. And what a healthy thing that is! Without it, we would never stand up and speak out for what we believe.”

“I believe it’s a fact of life that what we have is less important than what we make out of what we have. The same holds true for families. It’s not how many people there are in a family that counts, but rather the feelings among the people who are there.”

“Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we aren’t perfect.”

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”

“Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.”

“When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way.”

“The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: ‘Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and learn to love the questions themselves.’ ”

“When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air, or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.”

“[W]e don’t have to understand all of someone else’s creative efforts. What’s important is that we communicate our respect for their attempts to express what’s inside themselves.”


View all my reviews