Quote

Be real. Try to do what you say, say what you mean, and be what you seem.

Marian Wright Edelman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Marian Wright Edelman
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: June 6
Activist
Lawyer
Writer
Bennettsville
South Carolina
Seem
Seems
Real
Mean
Trying

More quotes by Marian Wright Edelman

Image
Black women rock the cradle, and whoever rocks the cradle rocks the future.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
Each American must remember and help America remember that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender in a democratic society.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
We must serve consciously as caring role models, emphasizing the ethic of service, not consumption.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
As [Martin Luther] King said, it never cost anybody a dime to integrate the lunch counters. When you start talking about trying to deal with jobs and hunger and things that require investment, then that's really the tough stuff, because everybody wants to do right if it doesn't cost them anything.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
No time is ever wasted if you have a book along as a companion.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
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.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
We are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home and the most to institutionalize him.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
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.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
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.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
I get very upset with all of the crowd seekers today, and people out there trying to get on TV. It ain't about you. It's about trying to make the world more just for everybody.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
Education remains one of the black community's most enduring values. It is sustained by the belief that freedom and education go hand in hand, that learning and training are essential to economic quality and independence.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
Dr. King used to say, 'I was sitting in the back of the bus, but my mind was always up front.' Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it. You aim high and you work very hard and now I think it's clear that you can be anything you want to.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
Never let us confuse what is legal with what is right. Everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not right.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
It is [children] who are God's presence, promise and hope for mankind.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
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.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
God did not create two classes of children or human beings-only one.
Marian Wright Edelman
Image
You can't tell parents to teach children the value of work when we don't have jobs and the jobs we have don't pay a decent wage. You can't tell children to achieve and then let them go to broken-down schools with teachers who don't care. We need a consistency of values in our public, corporate, and private lives.
Marian Wright Edelman