Fred Rogers Quotes

I don't think people today need to derive security from possessions.

I think success is about purpose. People ask about success at different points in your life. As I look back, I think people that are successful feel good about what they are doing, and they can look back at what they've done and they feel good about it. People sometimes ask about success and they say, "What's your legacy?" and I say, "I think it's really a dumb question." I think the question is: What am I doing now? Do I feel good about myself? Am I proud of myself? Whatever purpose there is in life, I think success is about purpose. It's not about material things.

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, 'why don't I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,' and they abandon their values.

What's the subject of life - to get rich? All of those fellows out there getting rich could be dancing around the real subject of life.

I like money. You like money. We need the money. But, money is not going to bring humanity and spiritualism into your life.

Money is not the most important to me.

With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

I think that in the past, in the '50s and '60s, after the existentialists and beatniks and hippie movements, the big deal was, Don't sell out. We live in a society that by virtue of the speed we communicate and sell, everything sells. The danger is buying in; that your concern becomes success, rather than fulfillment. They're two different beasts, and my feeling is that you should seek fulfillment. You should not measure your worth in how much you have or how popular you are, but how happy you are with what you do.

I knew a dude whose entire check was going to his car. He didn't care. This is back when the Mustang 5.0 came out in, like, '82. Between paying the note and insurance, I think he had like $40 left. A lot of people knew people because of their car, and not them.

The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased.

I used to think that having many material things would increase one's stock of happiness. I found that to be completely untrue. The trappings don't make the man at all.

This is not just a simple story of "money can't buy happiness." Or maybe that's just what it is. And if it is, why shouldn't it be? Because if this is something we are already supposed to know, then why don't we know it? Why do we chase and scrabble and fight for things to flaunt, why? Why do we reach for power over other people, and through the thin superiority of our possessions, believe we have it? Why do we let money make people bigger, and allow those without it to be made smaller? How did we lose the truth in the frantic, tribal drumbeat of more, more, more?

You earn money, and one day money is there -- then life says to you, 'What have you got?' But you don't listen. Now you think you have to put your money into politics, you have to become a prime minister or a president -- then everything will be okay. One day you are a prime minister, and life again says, 'What have you got?' You don't listen. You go on thinking of something else and something else and something else. Life is vast -- that's why many lives are wasted.

Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.

Money isn't everything, Mortimer.

...thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness?

I was never motivated by money. I think above all else about the happiness of my family, regardless of money.

Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security.... You'll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it's got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn't stand for that BS if I were you.

Where a man's heart is, there is his treasure also.

Life is not about money.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We're inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, 'Gimme, gimme, gimme,' you will always be in short supply.

I would rather be loved than have money and all that other stuff.

Money ain't everything.

We are such materialists that all our metaphors are going to be material.