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
I’m tough in the sense that I believe as strongly in what I’m doing as anybody else believes in what they are doing. – 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
You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation. – 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
We are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home and the most to institutionalize him. – Marian Wright Edelman
Together we can and must fight for justice for our children and protect them from draconian tax cuts and budget choices that threaten their survival, education and preparation for the future. If they are not ready for tomorrow, neither is America. – Marian Wright Edelman
You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day. – Marian Wright Edelman
I never thought I was breaking a glass ceiling. I just had to do what I had to do, and it never occurred to me not to. – Marian Wright Edelman
I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents. – 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
I hadn’t planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature. – Marian Wright Edelman
So much of the deep lingering sadness over President Kennedy’s assassination is about the unfinished promise: unspoken speeches, unfulfilled hopes, the wondering about what might have been. – Marian Wright Edelman
