After seeing “Won’t you be my neighbor?” With the ever so adorable Tom Hanks, I left feeling inspired. We should all be a little more like Mr. Rogers.

The show, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” first hit televisions on February 19, 1968. I was seven at the time and I hate to admit that I didn’t fully appreciate the PBS show.

Yet as an adult, I can see how Mr. Rogers’ compassion and empathy taught us baby boomers when we were kids that we are special just for being ourselves.

And Mr. Rogers helped calm us through a tumultuous time. As boomers will recall, watching the news was terrifying in 1968 with the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. As Fred Rogers put it, “When I was a kid and I saw scary things on the news, my mother would tell me, ‘Look for helpers. You will always find people who are helping you.’

Rogers’ sense of innocence, calm, curiosity, and playfulness helped us baby boomers see the sometimes scary world as a place to experience love and kindness, a place to create and invent, a place to live a positive life. and significant.

It seems like the show resonated with a lot of people from when it aired on PBS until 2001. What’s so wonderful is that it turns out that Fred Rogers was just as calm, kind, wise, and empathetic in real life as he was in his iconic children. Show.

In honor of the movie, which I loved, here are 10 quotes that are sure to brighten your day, encourage you to be more kind and thoughtful, and to communicate with your neighbor.

“If only you could feel how important you are to the lives of the people you know; how important you can be to the people you may not even dream of. There is something about yourself that you leave in every meeting with another person.”

“Anything that is human is noteworthy, and anything that can be mentioned can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less disturbing, and less scary. The people we trust with that talk importantly, they can help us know that we are not alone. “

“Often when you think you are at the end of something, you are at the beginning of something else.”

“Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, of course, a kind word to someone else.”

“There is no normal life that is free of pain. It is the very struggle with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.”

“There are three ways to achieve ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”

“No one else can live the life that you live. And although no human being is perfect, we always have the opportunity to bring what is unique in us to live in a redemptive way.”

“Forgiveness is a strange thing. Sometimes it can be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be more difficult to forgive the people we love. Like all important life coping skills, the ability to forgive and forgiveness. The ability to let go of resentments is likely to take hold very early in our lives. “

“It is not so much what we have in this life that matters. It is what we do with what we have.”

“Everyone longs to be loved. And the best thing we can do is let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.”

Fred Rogers died in 2003, but his words still stand to inspire us all. As Mr. Rogers sings on his show’s theme song, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”: “So, let’s make the most of this beautiful day.”