Fred Rogers Quotes

Do not be impatient with your seemingly slow progress. Do not try to run faster than you presently can. If you are studying, reflecting and trying, you are making progress whether you are aware of it or not. A traveler walking the road in the darkness of night is still going forward. Someday, some way, everything will break open, like the natural unfolding of a rosebud.

The aster has not wasted spring and summer because it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time can come; but their lives have not been wasted.

All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end it shall ripen into truth, and you shall know why you believe.

I think that growth and spiritual awareness come in slow increments. Sometimes you don't know it's happening.

I think the best things are the ones that happen organically and take a while because nothing really happens overnight if you think about it.

I wasn't perfect, although during the '60s, I may have appeared to be. After all, I was partying away there for awhile. From age 17 to 25, I worked only on the outer man, and I did pretty well, but I needed to go back and work on the inside.

The growth of the soul may be compared to the growth of a plant. In both cases, no new properties are imparted by the operation of external causes, but only the inward tendencies are called into action and clothed with strength.

God works according to the law of gradual growth, so don't be discouraged if your progress seems slow.

It takes time for an acorn to turn into an oak, but the oak is already implied in the acorn.

Man is like a tree. If you stand in front of a tree and watch it incessantly, to see how it grows, and to see how much it has grown, you will see nothing at all. But tend it at all times, prune the runners and keep it free of beetles and worms, and all in good time-it will come into its growth. It is the same with man: all that is necessary is for him to overcome his obstacles, and he will thrive and grow. But it is not right to examine him hour after hour to see how much has already been added to his stature.

Soul development should take precedence over all things.

Nothing can be rushed. It must grow, it should grow of itself, and if the time ever comes for that work, then so much the better!

In my heart I mean well. But if you help me to grow, then what I have in my heart will begin to show.

I love not rushing the process. Mind doesn't shift until it does, and when it does shift, it's right on time, not one second too late or too soon. People are like seeds waiting to sprout. We can't be pushed ahead of our own understanding.

Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of invisible game.

God’s priority isn’t your destination but your development. God’s priority isn’t the dream but the dreamer.

Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it.

The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it.

What we can and should change is ourselves: our impatience, our egoism (including intellectual egoism), our sense of injury, our lack of love and forbearance. I regard every other attempt to change the world, even if it springs from the best intentions, as futile.

Nature never gives everything at once.

I think I try to speak to the heart of the woman who I know is interested in growing into herself.

Quantum wellness isn’t about deprivation and it’s not about perfection. It is about pointing yourself in the direction of growth, training yourself to get comfortable with your highest potential, and then taking small steps to support that shift. It’s about showing up for yourself, day by day, and then one day finding that you’ve undergone a transformation.

What is most needed right now is evolving human consciousness. Without that, science, technology, development, everything will go waste.

Cease to be a disobedient child in the school of experience, and begin to learn, with humility and patience, the lessons that are set for your ultimate perfection.

No one ever became thoroughly bad in one step.