The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers Quotes

“Fred was patient with me in the years that followed our first meeting. He taught me that taking one’s time, especially in relationships, allows the other person to know he or she is worth the time.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“There is one thing that evil cannot stand, and that’s forgiveness.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“At last I had it: Fred’s intense devotion to the disenfranchised, to the least of these, arose from the realization that he was one of them.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Know this: You should judge every person by his merits. Even someone who seems completely wicked, you must search and find that little speck of good, for in that place, he is not wicked. By this you will raise him up, and help him return to God. And you must also do this for yourself, finding your own good points, one after the other, and raising yourself up. This is how melodies are made, note after note. REBBE NACHMAN OF BRESLOV”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Fred didn't advocate a freewheeling acceptance of any emotional outburst but believed that feelings should be expressed, and at the same time, controlled. 'One of the paramount things I feel that the world needs to do is to be able to deal with the anger that so many people feel, and I like to think that the Neighborhood offers a smorgasbord of ways of saying who you are and how you feel. And we've heard from people...that say, 'I started to do something, and I realized that it wasn't right, and I was able to stop, And do you know, I thought of your song, 'It's great to be able to stop, when you've planned a thing that's wrong, and be able to do something else instead, and think this song.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Fred rightly reasoned that if we accept ourselves we are better equipped to accept our neighbor.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Mister Rogers’ constancy is what stayed with people. (This is a possible explanation for why studies have shown that children from lower-income homes, who often have to deal with inconsistency in their lives, showed a greater positive impact from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood episodes than their non-poor peers.) But for many people, that realization came only after they were able to look at Neighborhood through the lens of time; in the meantime, Fred had to resist the temptation to be something other than he was.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Just as it takes a tree a long time to begin to grow again once it’s transplanted, so you can give your healthy roots time to find the nourishment of your new soil in your new community.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“You can be an accuser or an advocate.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“An old supply pastor, many years before, had taught him that: What is offered in faith by one person can be translated by the Holy Spirit into what the other person needs to hear and see. The space between them is holy ground, and the Holy Spirit uses that space in ways that not only translate, but transcend.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“the essence of prayer is relationship,”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“I said, ‘Dr. Orr, you know in that verse, it says something about—how does it go?—“The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him,” and then it goes on, and then at the very end of that verse it says, “One little word shall fell him.”’ “I said, ‘Dr. Orr, what is that one little word that would wipe out the prince of darkness, fell him?’ “He thought for a moment, and said, ‘Forgiveness. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ He said, ‘You know, Fred, there is one thing that evil cannot stand, and that’s forgiveness.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“If parents can remember what it was like to be a child, they are going to be much more empathic with their own children.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“If you ever fall into quicksand, the most important thing to remember is this: take your time. Quicksand, unlike water, will not move out of the way to let you pass. Instead, it resists movement. Flailing about will only cause you to sink deeper. But slowly gets you safely to shore. It’s no accident that each episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood opens with a shot of a traffic light flashing in yellow caution mode.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“And so, for me, being quiet and slow is being myself, and that is my gift.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“I just figured that the best gift you could offer anybody is your honest self, and that’s what I’ve done for lots of years. And thanks for accepting me exactly as I am.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“When I asked for your prayers,” he wrote in an early letter, “I didn’t mean to be vague about the need. I always pray that through whatever we produce (whatever we say and do) some word that is heard might ultimately be God’s word. That’s my main concern. All the others are minor compared to that.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Cisterns are made to hold water, but there was no water in it at the time. Had there been, Joseph could have drowned. Instead he stayed relatively safe inside the cistern until his brothers inadvertently moved him toward his destiny in Egypt. Reflecting on my own cistern experience, I realized that God’s intention was not to drown me, not to overwhelm me with illness, but only to hold me still for a while.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“And that one part can make an enormous difference in the lives of others, especially when we commit to a life of spiritual wholeness that's represented by looking inward with our hearts (inner disciplines affect how we see others); looking outward with our eyes (how we see others affects how we treat others); and finally, by using what we've learned practically, with our hands.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“I think that Fred felt that loved ones in heaven do help those they left behind. He once told me, 'I think of my mother and my dad, and they're both in heaven and have been for a long time, and I know that they still love me and they help me. I have friends who are in heaven, and I know that they inspire me to do all kinds of things in this life.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Frankly, I think that after we die, we have this wide understanding of what's real. And we'll probably say, 'Ah, so that's what it was all about.' Fred Rogers”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“For Fred, this practical outworking of loving our neighbor-using not only our heart and eyes but our hands-is what defined a hero: 'To see people who will notice a need in the world and do something about it, and rather than view it with despair they view it with hope-that to me is such an enormous gift in this life. Those are my heroes.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“My grandfather was supporting the things I was trying out. It's great to have people like that in your life, and I hope that, well, as a matter of fact, he was the one who said, "You've made this day a special day by just your being you, Freddy."...Well, I've been able to pass that on to other children.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Then, once we are able to see the image of God in our neighbors, once we recognize their inherent value, we strive to help them become who they were meant to be.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Later he would counsel parents to allow their children to act out their feelings through puppets, as a way to bring some distance between the children and their difficult emotions.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Many people feel that they must surrender their personalities in order to become more Christlike....When we are in Christ, we will be more ourselves than ever. Encouraging others to be themselves, their honest selves, was the hallmark of Fred's ministry here on earth. It was the best gift he could offer.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“This wasn't her intention, but the message I received was that there was no place in our home for my fears or concerns. Instead of dealing with my fear over my parents' argument, I was asked to write a sappy poem to cancel out my negative feelings. This was a powerful lesson, one I carried over into my own family. Early in our marriage, I would dismiss my husband's concerns about problems. When our children were old enough to communicate, I would try to talk them out of their negative feelings-or convince them there was no foundation for them. But what I found out is that suppressing feelings has the same fate as trying to suppress a beachball in the ocean-they both come out sideways. Feelings that come out 'sideways'-in disguised forms that are sometimes more symptomatic than the original feelings-are much harder to deal with. It would have been much better to just allow my husband, children, and myself to be honest the first time, to create an environment, as Fred said, that allows for the expression of negative feelings.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Fred may have considered silence his most important legacy. When acclaimed musician Yo-Yo Ma visited the Neighborhood and played Fred's composition 'Tree, Tree, Tree' on his cello, Fred took some time afterward to reflect. Let's take some quiet time to remember, he invited his television neighbor, to sit and think about what we've heard. And so he did. It wasn't dead air to him; it was thanking the God who inspires and informs all that is nourishing and good.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

“Fred-may-have-considered-silence-his-most-important legacy. When acclaimed musician Yo-Yo Ma visited the Neighborhood and played Fred's composition 'Tree, Tree, Tree' on his cello, Fred took some time afterward to reflect. Let's take some quiet time to remember, he invited his television neighbor, to sit and think about what we've heard. And so he did. It wasn't dead air to him; it was thanking the God who inspires and informs all that is nourishing and good.”
― Amy Hollingsworth, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor