Quote

Be a good ancestor. Stand for something bigger than yourself. Add value to the Earth during your sojourn.

Marian Wright Edelman

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Marian Wright Edelman
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: June 6
Activist
Lawyer
Writer
Bennettsville
South Carolina
Values
Earth
Something
Sojourn
Good
Ancestor
Add
Bigger
Value
Stand

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Luckily, I had incredible parents who, when they saw a problem, didn't say, Why doesn't somebody do something? They would say, Why don't we do something?.
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Service is the rent we pay for living.
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Never let us confuse what is legal with what is right. Everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not right.
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You can achieve much in life if you don't mind doing the work and giving someone else the credit.
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So often we think we have got to make a difference and be a big dog. Let us just try to be little fleas biting. Enough fleas biting strategically can make a big dog very uncomfortable.
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Amidst protestations of 'Who can be against the children?' too few people are FOR children when it really matters.
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Don't assume a door is closed push on it. Don't assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today. Don't ever stop learning and improving your mind. If you do, you're going to be left behind.
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A nation that does not stand for its children does not stand for anything and will not stand tall in the future.
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I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents. We've got to send messages to our kids about what is important.
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Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.
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We're a violent nation, and we need to confront it. This gun plague has to stop.
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There are levels of outrage, and there's a point at which you can't be trespassed upon anymore.
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What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America.
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If things are too easy, life is a whole lot less interesting.
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In my generation, we learned how to be leaders by being exposed to and involved with adults who empowered us and gave us a sense that we could choose things. We've let down the generations coming behind us and we are trying to re- establish that connection.
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As I contemplate the kind of future I want for children-my own and other people's-I believe we must look inward to God for guidance and strength and backward to draw on the values and legacies of our families, ancestors, and communities.
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The legacy I want to leave is a child-care system that says that no kid is going to be left alone or left unsafe.
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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.
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Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.
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It is a spiritually impoverished nation that permits infants and children to be the poorest Americans.
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