William Bennett

“The elementary school must assume as its sublime and most solemn responsibility the task of teaching every child in it to read. Any school that does not accomplish this has failed.”

“Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.”

“Give yourself an even greater challenge than the one you are trying to master and you will develop the powers necessary to overcome the original difficulty.”

“It is our character that supports the promise of our future - far more than particular government programs or policies.”

“For children to take morality seriously they must be in the presence of adults who take morality seriously. And with their own eyes they must see adults take morality seriously.”

“Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay not attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.”

“America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world.”

“A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.”

“Now we have reason to be grateful once again that Al Gore is not the man in the White House, and never will be.”

“All real education is the architecture of the soul.”

“Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue.”

“If we are surrounded by the trivial and the vicious, it is all too easy to make our peace with it.”

“Our schools should get five years to get back to where they were in 1963. If they're still bad maybe we should declare educational bankruptcy, give the people their money and let them educate themselves and start their own schools.”

“Real fatherhood means love and commitment and sacrifice and a willingness to share responsibility and not walking away from one's children.”

“The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult ethical controversies of the day.”