110+ Robert Fulghum Quotes On Inspiring, Thoughtful And Humorous

Robert Fulghum is an American author best known for his book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. He is a Unitarian Universalist minister and has written several books of essays, stories, and observations on life. His works often focus on the importance of basic human values such as kindness, trust, and responsibility. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Robert Fulghum on life, inspiring, thoughtful.

Top 10 Robert Fulghum Quotes

1. We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.
2. Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
3. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.
4. The examined life is no picnic.
5. All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten. Share everything ... Don't hit people ... Clean up your own mess.
6. Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.
7. Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the water of adversity and grief.
8. Peace is not something you wish for, it's something you make
9. Anything can happen. The great banana peel of existence is always on the floor somewhere.
10. Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well.

Robert Fulghum Short Quotes

• I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
• Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts.
• To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence hollering, What's it for?
• Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found.
• I talk about very serious human affairs but with a lightness of heart.
• Even the finest workman needs to inspect his work critically.
• Play fair. Don't hit people. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• And good neighbors make a huge difference in the quality of life. I agree.
• Now everybody has some secret goals in life.
• Everything we can imagine becomes real.

Robert Fulghum Quotes About Life

We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love. — Robert Fulghum

Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that's worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn't even come close to answering the question. "What do you do?". — Robert Fulghum

Speed and efficiency do not always increase the quality of life. — Robert Fulghum

If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over? — Robert Fulghum

I've always thought anyone can make money. Making a life worth living, that's the real test. — Robert Fulghum

Only now have I finally realized that my life has been an unending field trip. And I have tried hard not to be a tourist. But to be an adventurer, a traveler, an explorer, a learner, and a pilgrim. — Robert Fulghum

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. — Robert Fulghum

Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes. — Robert Fulghum

One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. — Robert Fulghum

So you drive as far as you can, even when you can clearly read the sign. You want to think you are exempt, that it doesn’t apply to you. But it does. Life is still a dead end. And we still have a hard time believing it — Robert Fulghum

Robert Fulghum Quotes About Inspiring

I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart, the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind. — Robert Fulghum

The Sikh gave him the money. When Menon asked for his address so that he could repay the man, the Sikh said that Menon owed the debt to any stranger who came to him in need, as long as he lived. The help came from a stranger and was to be repaid to a stranger. — Robert Fulghum

Imagination is more important than information. Einstein said that, and he should know. And they come. And they look. And we push. And they fly. We to stay and die on our beds. They to go and die howsoever, yet inspiring those who come after them to find their own edge. And fly. — Robert Fulghum

Robert Fulghum Quotes About Love

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death. — Robert Fulghum

The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are. — Robert Fulghum

to understand our love they'd have to turn the world upside down — Robert Fulghum

Why is love easy? I don’t know. And the raccoons don’t say. — Robert Fulghum

But love may have to be left off the exam. Most of us will never learn. — Robert Fulghum

The heart will turn to a prune if love is always by the numbers. How will you know if someone really loves you if they only meet your expectations and not your needs? — Robert Fulghum

Always trust your fellow man. And always cut the cards. Always trust God. And always build your house on high ground. Always love thy neighbor. And always pick a good neighborhood to live in. — Robert Fulghum

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- that myth is more potent than history. I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts -- That hope always triumphs over experience -- That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death. — Robert Fulghum

The point is that getting married for lust or money or social status or even love is usually trouble. The point is that marriage is a maze into which we wander - a maze that is best got through with a great companion. — Robert Fulghum

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- myth is more potent than history -- dreams are more powerful than facts -- hope always triumphs over experience -- laughter is the cure for grief -- love is stronger than death. — Robert Fulghum

Robert Fulghum Quotes About Facts

The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be. — Robert Fulghum

Dreams are more powerful than facts. — Robert Fulghum

The myth of the impossible dream is more powerful than all the facts of history. — Robert Fulghum

Robert Fulghum Famous Quotes And Sayings

Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this “something” cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It’s what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn’t count it. Nothing counts without it. — Robert Fulghum

I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have - I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change somethings in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life. — Robert Fulghum

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. — Robert Fulghum

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. The grass is greenest where it is watered. — Robert Fulghum

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. — Robert Fulghum

Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart. — Robert Fulghum

Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away. — Robert Fulghum

Arguing whether or not a God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name for God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog. — Robert Fulghum

Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens.... My grandfather would say we're part of something incredibly wonderful - more marvelous than we imagine. My grandfather would say we ought to go out and look at it once in a while so we don't lose our place in it. — Robert Fulghum

Only an open mind still has room for new knowledge. What is outgrown and used up must be discarded to make room for what is yet to be learned. And much of the best thinking is done alone-in deserts, on beaches, in bed, behind closed doors. It is why we say we need to get away-to escape from clutter and busyness-to hear ourselves think. — Robert Fulghum

For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I'm grumpy or mad, I'll realize that I've not been paying attention to my soul and I've not been following my best routine. — Robert Fulghum

It is the chair in honor of all those who, however competently, embrace the impossible. Sit in that chair someday. — Robert Fulghum

Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game? Do we still have what it takes to find a better way? — Robert Fulghum

A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing. — Robert Fulghum

When my neighbor walks the dogs, he performs a ritual act of sacer simplicitas, to use the church Latin: "sacred simplicity." Walking the dog is in truth a ritual of renewal and revival on an intimate scale - a small rebirth of well-being on a daily basis. — Robert Fulghum

Living things have been doing just that for a long, long time. Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors. — Robert Fulghum

Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. — Robert Fulghum

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there at the sandpile at Sunday School. — Robert Fulghum

This is an exercise in power - the power of mind over matter. If you don't mind being inadequate, it doesn't matter. — Robert Fulghum

I'm good at doing the laundry. At least that. And it's a religious experience...Water, earth, fire-polarities of wet and dry, hot and cold, dirty and clean. The great cycles-round and round-beginning and end-Alpha and Omega, amen. — Robert Fulghum

Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. — Robert Fulghum

Water is everywhere and in all living things; we cannot be seperated from water. No water, no life. Period. Water comes in many forms - liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But no matter the form, it's still water. — Robert Fulghum

I often say that I don't worry about the meaning of life-I can't handle that big stuff. What concerns me is the meaning in life-day by day, hour by hour, while I'm doing whatever it is I do. What counts is not what I do, but how I think about myself while I'm doing it. — Robert Fulghum

Desire is the intangible quality that has more impact on success than talent, education, or IQ. You can't see desire, but you can feel its presence, and see its results in the lives of successful people. — Robert Fulghum

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup-they all die. So do we. — Robert Fulghum

Now Everybody has some secret goals in life...Sometimes you can get what you want and what you need at the sames time. — Robert Fulghum

It's just this: that there are places we all come from-deep-rooty-common places- that makes us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again-and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory. — Robert Fulghum

The kindergarten children are confident in spirit, infinite in resources, and eager to learn. Everything is still possible. — Robert Fulghum

Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. There is too much evidence to the contrary. — Robert Fulghum

The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature’s imperfect but tenacious survivors. — Robert Fulghum

About winning and losing: It isn't important, what really counts is how you play the game. About playing the game: PLAY TO WIN! — Robert Fulghum

If we could just figure out how to have more fun at it, maybe more of us would join the ranks of those who seek after justice and mercy. — Robert Fulghum

I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you. — Robert Fulghum

Once you know where the roller coaster is going, are you in for the ride? — Robert Fulghum

It doesn’t matter what you say you believe - it only matters what you do. — Robert Fulghum

Infinite possibility in all things is a certainty. That pretty much covers theology and philosophy for me. — Robert Fulghum

Life is. I am. Anything might happen. — Robert Fulghum

An artists job is to see. And to go out in the world and see it firsthand, just as it is; to report with line and words what is seen. To be in the world, not just study about the world, that is the artists task — Robert Fulghum

Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is IT goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.Medieval theologians even described God, in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end. — Robert Fulghum

I and you-We are infinate, rich, large, contradictory, living, breathing miracles-free human beings, children of God and the everlasting universe. That's what we do. — Robert Fulghum

The name is not important anymore - it's the tone that counts. I feel like an old dog I know. He will come to any name you call him, just so long as your demeanor carries with it the promise of affection and food — Robert Fulghum

It’s the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible. — Robert Fulghum

If you tell people you talk to God, they'll think you're religious, but if you say God talks to you, it's ten to one they'll think you're crazy. — Robert Fulghum

Love the battle between chaos and imagination. Remember: Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. Remember: Acting is the way to live the greatest number of lives. Remember: Acting is the same as real life, lived intentionally. Never forget: The Fruit is out on the end of the limb. Go there. — Robert Fulghum

Above all, if what you've done is stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid. — Robert Fulghum

We even make ourselves up, fusing what we are with what we wish into what we must become. I'm not sure why it must be so, but it is. — Robert Fulghum

Everyone has doors in the living room of their lives that they assume are locked. Doors that lead to artistic expression. People say "I have no talent -- I can't dance or sing or paint or write poetry or play an instrument." More often than not the doors are not locked, just closed. One may turn the handle, open the door and pass through into a larger life space. — Robert Fulghum

Doing a straight-forward, clear-cut task that has a beginning and an end balances out the complexity-without-end that often vexes the rest of my life. Sacred simplicity. — Robert Fulghum

If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But, they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of do what they please. So we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity — Robert Fulghum

And I’m not confused about the lack of, or the need for, imagination in low or high places. We could do better we must do better. There are far worse things to drop on people than crayolas. — Robert Fulghum

Share everything. Don't take things that aren't yours. Put things back where you found them. — Robert Fulghum

It's not that I'm not grateful for all this attention. It's just that fame and fortune ought to add up to more than fame and fortune. — Robert Fulghum

My own movement of thought is not meant to be a straight point-to-point, linear line of march, but horizontal exploration from one area of interest to another. There is no ultimate destination - no finish line to cross, no final conclusion to be reached. It's the way I feel about dancing - you move around a lot, not to get somewhere, but to be somewhere in time. — Robert Fulghum

Public lives are lived out on the job and in the marketplace, where certain rules, conventions, laws, and social customs keep most of us in line. Private lives are lived out in the presence of family, friends, and neighbors who must be considered and respected even though the rules and proscriptions are looser than what's allowed in public. But in our secret lives, inside our own heads, almost anything goes. — Robert Fulghum

Life is. I am. Anything might happen. And I believe I may invest my life with meaning. The uncertainty is a blessing in disguise. If I were absolutely certain about all things, I would spend my life in anxious misery, fearful of losing my way. But since everything and anything are always possible, the miraculous is always nearby and wonders shall never, ever cease. — Robert Fulghum

The older I get, the more I realize the importance of exercising the various dimensions of my body, soul, mind, and heart. Taken together, these aspects give me a sense of wholeness. I want to be a whole human being rather than one who limps on one leg because I don't know how to use all of my parts. Intellectual, emotional, and physical activity are not separate entities. Rather, they are dimensions of the same human being. — Robert Fulghum

Sometimes during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This paying-attention gives meaning to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that careful attention paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think this way, even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to my day. — Robert Fulghum

To look this way is to see. To see is to have vision. To have vision is to understand. To understand is to know. To know is to become. To become is to live fully. To live fully is to matter. And to matter is to become light. And to become light is to be loved. And to be loved is to burn. And to burn is to exist. Off and on. — Robert Fulghum

There is nothing in your budget for joy. No books, no flowers, no music, not even a cold beer. And there is nothing in your budget to give away to someone else. We don’t help people who don’t have better values than you do. — Robert Fulghum

One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference. — Robert Fulghum

Even if your watch is full of diamonds the hour is still 60 minutes — Robert Fulghum

Almost anything can be dealt with if people are of good will and light hearts and strong values. — Robert Fulghum

If you do not join the dancing you will feel foolish. So why not dance? And i will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. if you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there. — Robert Fulghum

Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don't forget. — Robert Fulghum

Just when you thought that you already learned the way how to live, life changes - and you're left the same as you begun. — Robert Fulghum

What I notice is that every adult or child I give a new set of Crayolas to goes a little funny. The kids smile, get a glazed look on their faces, pour the crayons out, and just look at them for a while....The adults always get the most wonderful kind of sheepish smile on their faces--a mixture of delight and nostalgia and silliness. And they immediately start telling you about all their experiences with Crayolas. — Robert Fulghum

Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of. Here's to the eternal tandem. — Robert Fulghum

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands - bare hands - and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands - a kind of mad courage. — Robert Fulghum

Life Lessons by Robert Fulghum

1. Robert Fulghum emphasizes the importance of living in the moment and cherishing the small moments in life. He encourages us to be kind to one another and to appreciate the beauty of the world around us. Finally, he reminds us to be open to learning, exploring, and growing as individuals.