A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back - but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.
Marian Wright Edelman

Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.
Marian Wright Edelman

Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for.
Marian Wright Edelman

Education is a precondition to survival in America today.
Marian Wright Edelman

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.
Marian Wright Edelman

Far less wealthy industrialized countries have committed to end child poverty, while the United States is sliding backwards. We can do better. We must demand that our leaders do better.
Marian Wright Edelman

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.
Marian Wright Edelman

If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans.
Marian Wright Edelman

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.
Marian Wright Edelman

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.
Marian Wright Edelman

My faith has been the driving thing of my life. I think it is important that people who are perceived as liberals not be afraid of talking about moral and community values.
Marian Wright Edelman

Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night.
Marian Wright Edelman

No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.
Marian Wright Edelman

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
Marian Wright Edelman

Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.
Marian Wright Edelman

People who don't vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.
Marian Wright Edelman

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

Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.
Marian Wright Edelman

Service is what life is all about.
Marian Wright Edelman

The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place.
Marian Wright Edelman