Home > Work > All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
1 " 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 , All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
2 " Everything I need to know... I learned in kindergarten. "
3 " Does the giraffe know what he's for? Or care? Or even think about his place in things? 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. "
4 " If only the scientific experts could come up with something to get it out of our minds. One cup of fixit fizzle that will lift the dirt from our lives, soften our hardness, protect our inner parts, improve our processing, reduce our yellowing and wrinkling, improve our natural color, and make us sweet and good. "
5 " 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. "
6 " Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know. "
7 " I know what I really want for Christmas.I want my childhood back.Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy. "
8 " Until you have experienced raccoons mating underneath your bedroom at three in the morning, you have missed one of life's sensational moments. "
9 " 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. "
10 " 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. "
11 " Don't Believe Everything You Think! "
12 " And sure, I know if you eat this way you'll die. So? If you don't eat this way you're still going to die. Why not die happy? "
13 " The gift was not large as money goes, and my need was not great, but the spirit of the gift is beyond price and leaves me blessed and in debt. "
14 " About winning and losing: It isn't important, what really counts is how you play the game. About playing the game: PLAY TO WIN! "
15 " 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. "
16 " You may never have proof of your importance but you are more important than you think. There are always those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who. "
17 " Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "
18 " It doesn’t matter what you say you believe - it only matters what you do. "
19 " It’s harder to talk about, but what I really, really, really want for Christmas is just this: I want to be 5 years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked or rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to be just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas: I want my childhood back. People who think good thoughts give good gifts. "
20 " 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. "