mister rogers on love

love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like “struggle.” to love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

by far the most important aspect of rogers’s philosophy is the idea that you have to work to keep loving and caring about someone. it’s not a thing that happens once and then ceases. it’s a constant, lifelong process.

Mister Rogers on caring for others around you

if you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. there is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

Mister Rogers on civic duty

we live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. it’s easy to say “it’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” then there are those who see the need and respond. i consider those people my heroes.

rogers believed deeply that other people’s problems were also, on some level, his problems. he was careful to take the time to meet with as many fans as possible when he was out in public.

Mister Rogers on change

often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.

the concept of hope was incredibly important to rogers, who spent many an episode of his show trying to help children see past the big, scary thing right in front of them, be it divorce or the bathtub drain, in favor of what might be coming down the line.

Mister Rogers on peace

peace means far more than the opposite of war.

peace, like love or like hope, is an action one can take, something that can be done, not just something that might arrive.

Mister Rogers on solitude

solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.

most episodes of mister rogers’ neighborhood open with long sequences where it’s just him, talking directly to the camera, in a very calm, soft, still voice. they project a sense of tranquility that feels a little dreamlike, which is probably why the show was so successful. rogers understood that kids (and adults) like, and need, to be soothed now and then.