# All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten - Author: [Robert Fulghum](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum.md) - Quotes: 17 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten ## Quotes > Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/yelling-at-living.md) > Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. > > And it is still true, no matter how old you are — when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/take-any-one.md) > I recall an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one wish by God. The man said he would like to go about doing good without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to all human beings. > > And so it has been to this day. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/i-recall-an-old.md) > Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air — explode softly — and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth — boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap either — not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death. A child who touched one wouldn't have his hand blown off. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/maybe-we-should.md) > Too much high-content information, and I get the existential willies. I keep sputtering out at intersections where life choices must be made and I either know too much or not enough. The examined life is no picnic. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/too-much-high-content.md) > All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned. These are the things you already know: [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/all-i-really.md) > You can't always explain everything you do to everybody, you know. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/you-cant-always.md) > There’s another thing not everyone figures out right away: It’s almost impossible to go through life all alone. We need to find our support group — family, friends, companion, therapy gatherings, team, church or whatever. The kindergarten admonition applies as long as we live: “When you go out into the world, hold hands and stick together.” It’s dangerous out there — lonely, too. Everyone needs someone. Some assembly is always required. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/theres-another-thing.md) > There are places we all come from — deep-rooty-common places — that make us who they 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. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/there-are-places.md) > Knowledge is meaningful only if it is reflected in action. The human race has found out the hard way that we are what we do, not just what we think. This is true for kids and adults — for schoolrooms and nations. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/knowledge-is-meaningful.md) > What we learn in kindergarten comes up again and again in our lives as long as we live. In far more complex, polysyllabic forms, to be sure. In lectures, encyclopedias, bibles, company rules, courts of law, sermons, and handbooks. Life will examine us continually to see if we have understood and have practiced what we were taught that first year of school. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/what-we-learn.md) > Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/live-a-balanced.md) > It’s hard to explain the cost and consequences of environmental pollution and destruction to a six year old. But we are paying a desperate price even now because adults did not heed the instructions of kindergarten: Clean up your own mess; put things back where you found them; don’t take what’s not yours. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/its-hard-to-explain.md) > Be aware of wonder. And then remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned — the biggest word of all — LOOK. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/be-aware-of-wonder.md) > A six-year-old will not understand that “By and large it has been demonstrated that violence is counterproductive to the constructive interaction of persons and societies.” True. But a child can better understand that the rule out in the world and in the school is the same: Don’t hit people. Bad things happen. The child must understand this rule is connected to the first rule: People won’t share or play fair if you hit them. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/a-six-year-old-will.md) > Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don’t forget. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/life-and-death-lifedeath-one.md) > From the first day we are told in words we can handle what has come to be prized as the foundation of community and culture. Though the teacher may call these first lessons “simple rules,” they are in fact the distillation of all the hard-won, field-tested working standards of the human enterprise. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/from-the-first.md)