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What Really Matters Is Not Just Our Own Winning But Helping Other People To Win, Too.
-Fred Rogers
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What Really Matters Is

Fred Rogers
...
What Really Matters Is Not Just Our Own Winning But Helping Other People To Win, Too.

Understanding the Quote: "what really matters is not just our own winning but helping other..."

This quote by Fred Rogers reflects deeply on the theme of helping others. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Helping Others, Winning, People, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Fred Rogers interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers is celebrated for insightful thoughts on helping others and winning. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 67221
Topic
Helping Others
Winning
People
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Thinking
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Violence
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Somewhere Else
Feelings
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Heart
Thinking
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Needs
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Feelings
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I Believe It's A Fact Of Life That What We Have Is Less Important Than What We Make Out Of What We Have.
Believe
Important
Facts
When I Was A Boy I Used To Think That Strong Meant Having Big Muscles, Great Physical Power; But The Longer I Live, The More I Realize That Real Strength Has Much More To Do With What Is Not Seen. Real Strength Has To Do With Helping Others.
Strong
Real
Helping Others
My Friendship With Mitzi Was Like The Friendship That Many Children Have With Their Pets. My Mother And Father Thought It Was "good For Me" To Have A Dog For A Companion. Well It Was Good For Me, But It Was Only Many Years After She Died That I Began To Understand How Good It Was, And Why.
Mother
Dog
Children
There Is Something Of Yourself That You Leave At Every Meeting With Another Person.
Self Esteem
Self Confidence
Self Love
The Real Drama Of Life Is Never Centerstage. It's Always In The Wings.
Real
Drama
Wings
Love Isn't A State Of Perfect Caring, It Is An Active Noun Like Struggle.
Struggle
Caring
Love Is
Mutual Caring Relationships Require Kindness And Patience, Tolerance, Optimism, Joy In The Other's Achievements, Confidence In Oneself, And The Ability To Give Without Undue Thought Of Gain.
Relationship
Kindness
Caring
Discovering The Truth About Ourselves Is A Lifetime’s Work, But It’s Worth The Effort.
Spiritual
Wisdom
Effort
Deep Within Us-no Matter Who We Are-there Lives A Feeling Of Wanting To Be Lovable, Of Wanting To Be The Kind Of Person That Others Like To Be With. And The Greatest Thing We Can Do Is To Let People Know That They Are Loved And Capable Of Loving.
People
Feelings
Who We Are
I Feel So Strongly That Deep And Simple Is Far More Essential Than Shallow And Complex.
Simple
Interesting
Essentials
What's Been Important In My Understanding Of Myself And Others Is The Fact That Each One Of Us Is So Much More Than Any One Thing. A Sick Child Is Much More Than His Or Her Sickness. A Person With A Disability Is Much, Much More Than A Handicap. A Pediatrician Is More Than A Medical Doctor. You're Much More Than Your Job Description Or Your Age Or Your Income Or Your Output.
Jobs
Children
Doctors
At The Center Of The Universe Is A Loving Heart That Continues To Beat And That Wants The Best For Every Person. Anything That We Can Do To Help Foster The Intellect And Spirit And Emotional Growth Of Our Fellow Human Beings, That Is Our Job. Those Of Us Who Have This Particular Vision Must Continue Against All Odds. Life Is For Service.
Jobs
Heart
Emotional
It's A Beautiful Day In This Neighborhood, A Beautiful Day For A Neighbor. Would You Be Mine? Could You Be Mine?... It's A Neighborly Day In This Beauty Wood, A Neighborly Day For A Beauty. Would You Be Mine? Could You Be Mine?... I've Always Wanted To Have A Neighbor Just Like You. I've Always Wanted To Live In A Neighborhood With You. So, Let's Make The Most Of This Beautiful Day. Since We're Together We Might As Well Say: Would You Be Mine? Could You Be Mine? Won't You Be My Neighbor? Won't You Please, Won't You Please? Please Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Beautiful
Together
Might
In Appreciating Our Neighbor, We're Participating In Something Truly Sacred.
Appreciate
Sacred
Neighbor
What Do You Think It Is That Drives People To Want Far More Than They Could Ever Use Or Need? I Frankly Think It's Insecurity. How Do We Let The World Know That The Trappings Of This Life Are Not The Things That Are Ultimately Important For Being Accepted?
Thinking
People
Insecurity
When I Was A Boy And I Would See Scary Things In The News, My Mother Would Say To Me, "look For The Helpers. You Will Always Find People Who Are Helping.
Mother
Fun
Boys
We've Forgotten What It's Like Not To Be Able To Reach The Light Switch. We've Forgotten A Lot Of The Monsters That Seemed To Livein Our Room At Night. Nevertheless, Those Memories Are Still There, Somewhere Inside Us, And Can Sometimes Be Brought To The Surface By Events, Sights, Sounds, Or Smells. Children, Though, Can Never Have Grown-up Feelings Until They've Been Allowed To Do The Growing.
Children
Memories
Night
You Make Each Day A Special Day. You Know How, By Just Your Being You.
Friendship
Special
Each Day
Our World Hangs Like A Magnificent Jewel In The Vastness Of Space. Every One Of Us Is A Part Of That Jewel. A Facet Of That Jewel. And In The Perspective Of Infinity, Our Differences Are Infinitesimal.
Differences
Space
Our World
Some Days, Doing "the Best We Can" May Still Fall Short Of What We Would Like To Be Able To Do, But Life Isn't Perfect On Any Front-and Doing What We Can With What We Have Is The Most We Should Expect Of Ourselves Or Anyone Else.
Fall
Perfect
May
There's No "should" Or "should Not" When It Comes To Having Feelings. They're Part Of Who We Are And Their Origins Are Beyond Our Control. When We Can Believe That, We May Find It Easier To Make Constructive Choices About What To Do With Those Feelings.
Believe
Choices
Feelings
When I Was Very Young, Most Of My Childhood Heroes Wore Capes, Flew Through The Air, Or Picked Up Buildings With One Arm. They Were Spectacular And Got A Lot Of Attention. But As I Grew, My Heroes Changed, So That Now I Can Honestly Say That Anyone Who Does Anything To Help A Child Is A Hero To Me.
Children
Hero
Air
How Great It Is When We Come To Know That Times Of Disappointment Can Be Followed By Joy; That Guilt Over Falling Short Of Our Ideals Can Be Replaced By Pride In Doing All That We Can; And That Anger Can Be Channeled Into Creative Achievements... And Into Dreams That We Can Make Come True.
Dream
Disappointment
Fall
It's Not The Honors And The Prizes And The Fancy Outsides Of Life Which Ultimately Nourish Our Souls. It's The Knowing That We Can Be Trusted, That We Never Have To Fear The Truth, That The Bedrock Of Our Very Being Is Good Stuff.
Knowing
Soul
Honor
When We Treat Children's Play As Seriously As It Deserves, We Are Helping Them Feel The Joy That's To Be Found In The Creative Spirit. We're Helping Ourselves Stay In Touch With That Spirit, Too. It's The Things We Play Withand The People Who Help Us Play That Make A Great Difference In Our Lives.
Children
Differences
Play
When We're Able To Resign Ourselves To The Wishes That Will Never Come True, There Can Be Enormous Energies Available Within Us For Whatever We Can Do.
Wish
Energy
Able
If It's Mentionable, It's Manageable.
Healing
Conflict
Ifs
I Feel The Greatest Gift We Can Give To Anybody Is The Gift Of Our Honest Self.
Honesty
Acceptance
Self
I Don't Believe That Children Can Develop In A Healthy Way Unless They Feel That They Have Value Apart From Anything They Own Or Any Skill That They Learn. They Need To Feel They Enhance The Life Of Someone Else, That They Are Needed. Who, Better Than Parents, Can Let Them Know That?
Children
Believe
Skills
Love Isn't A Perfect State Of Caring.
Caring
Love Is
Perfect
To Say That You Are Being Carried Is A Declaration Of Enormous Faith And Hope.
Hope And Faith
Enormous
Declaration
Development Comes From Within. Nature Does Not Hurry But Advances Slowly.
Doe
Development
I'm Proud Of You For The Times You Came In Second, Or Third, Or Fourth, But What You Did Was The Best You Have Ever Done
Done
Proud
Thirds
We Want To Raise Our Children So That They Can Take A Sense Of Pleasure In Both Their Own Heritage And The Diversity Of Others.
Children
Diversity
Heritage
It's The People We Love The Most Who Can Make Us Feel The Gladdest ... And The Maddest! Love And Anger Are Such A Puzzle!
People
Feels
Puzzles
As Different As We Are From One Another, As Unique As Each One Of Us Is, We Are Much More The Same Than We Are Different. That May Be The Most Essential Message Of All, As We Help Our Children Grow Toward Being Caring, Compassionate, And Charitable Adults.
Children
Caring
Unique
Little By Little We Human Beings Are Confronted With Situations That Give Us More And More Clues That We Are Not Perfect.
Giving
Perfect
Littles
The Roots Of A Child's Ability To Cope And Thrive, Regardless Of Circumstance, Lie In That Child's Having Had At Least A Small, Safe Place (an Apartment? A Room? A Lap?) In Which, In The Companionship Of A Loving Person, That Child Could Discover That He Or She Was Lovable And Capable Of Loving In Return. If A Child Finds This During The First Years Of Life, He Or She Can Grow Up To Be A Competent, Healthy Person.
Children
Growing Up
Lying
Play Is Really The Work Of Childhood.
Play
Childhood
Children Playing
The Kingdom Of God Is For The Broken Hearted
Broken
Kingdoms
Kingdom Of God
There Are Many Things Children Accept As "grown-up Things" Over When They Have No Control And For Which They Have No Responsibility--for Instance, Weddings, Having Babies, Buying Houses, And Driving Cars. Parents Who Are Separating Really Need To Help Their Children Put Divorce On That Grown-up List, So That Children Do Not See Themselves As The Cause Of Their Parents' Decision To Live Apart.
Baby
Children
Divorce
If The Grain Of Wheat Could Know Fear, It Would Be Paralyzed With Anxiety At The Thought Of Being Dropped In The Ground, Covered Over, Put Out Of Sight, Doomed To Inactivity, Yet What A Glorious Harvest Awaits It!
Sight
Anxiety
Would Be
Very Early In Our Children's Lives We Will Be Forced To Realize That The "perfect" Untroubled Life We'd Like For Them Is Just A Fantasy. In Daily Living, Tears And Fights And Doing Things We Don't Want To Do Are All Part Of Our Human Ways Of Developing Into Adults.
Children
Fighting
Perfect
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.
Motivational
Depression
Uplifting
Anyone Who Has Ever Been Able To Sustain Good Work Has Had At Least One Person--and Often Many--who Have Believed In Him Or Her. We Just Don't Get To Be Competent Human Beings Without A Lot Of Different Investments From Others.
Different
Able
Investment
A Young Apprentice Applied To A Master Carpenter For A Job. The Older Man Asked Him, "do You Know Your Trade?" "yes, Sir!" The Young Man Replied Proudly. "have You Ever Made A Mistake?" The Older Man Inquired. "no, Sir!" The Young Man Answered, Feeling Certain He Would Get The Job. "then There's No Way I'm Going To Hire You," Said The Master Carpenter, "because When You Make One, You Won't Know How To Fix It.
Jobs
Mistake
Men
The Greatest Gift You Ever Give Is Your Honest Self.
Self
Generosity
Giving
As Human Beings, Our Job In Life Is To Help People Realize How Rare And Valuable Each One Of Us Really Is, That Each Of Us Has Something That No One Else Has-or Ever Will Have-something Inside That Is Unique To All Time.
Inspirational
Life
Positive
There Are Three Ways To Ultimate Success: The First Way Is To Be Kind. The Second Way Is To Be Kind. The Third Way Is To Be Kind.
Life
Success
Thank You
If You Like To Make Things Out Of Wood, Or Sew, Or Dance, Or Style People's Hair, Or Dream Up Stories And Act Them Out, Or Play The Trumpet, Or Jump Rope, Or Whatever You Really Love To Do, And You Love That In Front Of Your Children, That's Going To Be A Far More Important Gift Than Anything You Could Ever Give Them Wrapped Up In A Box With Ribbons.
Dream
Children
Fun
We All Have Different Gifts, So We All Have Different Ways Of Saying To The World Who We Are.
Different
World
Who We Are
It's A Mistake To Think That We Have To Be Lovely To Be Loved By Human Beings Or By God
Love
Mistake
Thinking
Anyone Who Does Anything To Help A Child In His Life Is A Hero To Me.
Memorial Day
Teacher
Children
Real Strength Has To Do With Helping Others.
Real
Helping Others
Helping
It Would Have Been Sad For Me To Spend My Life Just Trying To Superimpose Stuff On People Rather Than Trying To Encourage Them To Look Within Themselves For What's Of Value.
Encouragement
Acceptance
People
Parents Find Many Different Ways To Work Their Way Through The Assertiveness Of Their Two-year-olds, But Seeing That Assertiveness As Positive Energy Being Directed Toward Growth As A Competent Individual May Open Up Some New Possibilities.
Years
Two Year Olds
Parent
Love Is At The Root Of All Healthy Discipline. The Desire To Be Loved Is A Powerful Motivation For Children To Behave In Ways Thatgive Their Parents Pleasure Rather Than Displeasure. It May Even Be Our Own Long-ago Fear Of Losing Our Parents' Love That Now Sometimes Makes Us Uneasy About Setting And Maintaining Limits. We're Afraid We'll Lose The Love Of Our Children When We Don't Let Them Have Their Way.
Children
Motivation
Powerful
It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, A Beautiful Day For A Neighbor. Would You Be Mine; Could You Be Mine?
Beautiful
Neighbor
Mines
Try Your Best To Make Goodness Attractive. That's One Of The Toughest Assignments You'll Ever Be Given.
Trying
Goodness
Attractive
I Think Of Discipline As The Continual Everyday Process Of Helping A Child Learn Self-discipline.
Children
Thinking
Self
Anything That’s Human Is Mentionable, And Anything That Is Mentionable Can Be More Manageable. When We Can Talk About Our Feelings, They Become Less Overwhelming, Less Upsetting, And Less Scary. The People We Trust With That Important Talk Can Help Us Know That We Are Not Alone.
Fear
Grief
Communication
Often When You Think You're At The End Of Something, You're At The Beginning Of Something Else.
Kids
Anti Bullying
Thinking
Our Children Are Extensions Of Ourselves In Ways Our Parents Are Not, Nor Our Brothers And Sisters, Nor Our Spouses.
Family
Brother
Children
Vermont Is A Small State Which Makes An Enormous Difference.
Differences
Vermont
States
The Child Is In Me Still And Sometimes Not So Still.
Children
Sometimes
Stills
I Like To Compare The Holiday Season With The Way A Child Listens To A Favorite Story. The Pleasure Is In The Familiar Way The Story Begins, The Anticipation Of Familiar Turns It Takes, The Familiar Moments Of Suspense, And The Familiar Climax And Ending.
Children
Holiday
Suspense
How Sad It Is That We Give Up On People Who Are Just Like Us.
Life
Sad
Giving Up
Sometimes People Are Good, And They Do Just What They Should. But The Very Same People Who Are Good Sometimes Are The Very Same People Who Are Bad Sometimes. It's Funny But It's True. Its The Same Isn't It, For Me And . . .
Inspirational
Motivational
People
You Know, You Don't Have To Look Like Everybody Else To Be Acceptable And To Feel Acceptable.
Looks
Feels
Acceptable
You Rarely Have Time For Everything You Want In This Life, So You Need To Make Choices. And Hopefully Your Choices Can Come From A Deep Sense Of Who You Are.
Choices
Want
Needs
It Is One Of The Paradoxes Of Parenting, And Often A Painful Paradox, That Even As Our Children Need Us For Love And Trust, They Also Need Us For Honest Differing. It's Not Only Over Limits And Rules...[but Also] About What We Represent In The Way Of Culture, Traditions, And Values. We Owe It To Our Children To Let Them Know What We Believe, And If They Differ With Us, We Owe It To Them To Be Honest Adversaries, For It Is Through This Honest Confrontation That Children Can Grow Into Adults Who Have A Firm Sense Of Their Place In The Sequence Of The Generations.
Children
Believe
Generations
It's Really Easy To Fall Into The Trap Of Believing That What We Do Is More Important Than What We Are. Of Course, It's The Opposite That's True: What We Are Ultimately Determines What We Do!
Believe
Fall
Opposites
Hopefully Your Choices Can Come From A Deep Sense Of Who You Are.
Choices
Hopefully
Who You Are
Look For The Helpers. You Will Always Find People Who Are Helping.
People
Boston Marathon
Looks
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