William Bennett Quotes & Sayings

From Samuel Adams to Patrick Henry to Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Hamilton, all the Founders intended religion to provide a moral anchor for our liberty in democracy. — William Bennett

If there is one thing educators can agree on, it's this: children do better in school when their parents get involved in their learning. — William Bennett

We are here to help one another along life's journey. — William Bennett

Too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing ... [We] need ... to set definite boundaries on our appetites. — William Bennett

A weakened sense of responsibility does not weaken the fact of responsibility. — William Bennett

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. — William Bennett

Responsible persons are mature people who have taken charge of themselves and their conduct, who own their actions and own up to them
who answer for them. — William Bennett

President Bush was widely ridiculed for consulting the Reverend Billy Graham before the Gulf war. — William Bennett

Loving your homeland is just as natural as loving your father or mother - after all, your country nourishes you, protects you, and in many ways makes you who you are. Just as it's a virtue to honor your parents, it's a good and admirable thing to honor the land you call home. — William Bennett

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

This country is a lot better at teaching self-esteem than it is at teaching math. — William Bennett

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

People of good character are not all going to come down on the same side of difficult political and social issues. Good people-people of character and moral literacy-can be conservative, and good people can be liberal. We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely, on the importance of good character, and some of its pervasive particulars. — William Bennett

Home is a shelter from storms - all sorts of storms. — William Bennett

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. — William Bennett

Much of the left-liberal elite despise traditional religious beliefs ... in general, they are profoundly uncomfortable with religious institutions and the traditional values they embody. — William Bennett

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue. — William Bennett

In the battle for preserving sound social and moral norms, many religious institutions can no longer be counted as allies. — William Bennett

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

The history of our nation is intertwined with a certain religious tradition, and that the First Amendment was not intended to result in the complete exclusion of religious beliefs from our public classrooms. — William Bennett

Nothing in recent years, on television or anywhere else, has improved on a good story that begins "Once upon a time ... " — William Bennett

A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward. — William Bennett

All real education is the architecture of the soul. — William Bennett

The new source of divisiveness is the assault of secularism on religion. — William Bennett

I can only speak about my own commute and can say that it has certainly affected my commute, making it longer and more hectic. — William Bennett

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

I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down, — William Bennett

Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language. — William Bennett

A City University of New York study done in 1991 revealed that nearly 90% of the American people identify themselves religiously as Christians or Jews, while only 7.5 percent claim no religion. — William Bennett

America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world. — William Bennett

I think we need to find out why the citizens of the world's wealthiest, most envied, most powerful country are so cynical, so distressed, so angry, so ticked of about so many things. — William Bennett

I do not suggest that you should not have an open mind ... but don't keep your mind so open that your brains fall out. — 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. — William Bennett

Government, obviously, cannot fill a child's emotional needs. Nor can it fill his spiritual and moral needs. Government is not a father or mother. Government has never raised a child, and it never will. — William Bennett

America's only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry against religious people. And the only reason for hatred of religion is that it forces us to confront matters many would prefer to ignore. — William Bennett

True courage is mixed with circumspection, the kind of healthy skepticism that asks, 'Is this the best way to do this?' True cowardice is marked by chronic skepticism, which always says, 'It can't be done.' — William Bennett

What you've got here is really a case of journalists making fun of people who believe in God and the devil. — William Bennett

If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits. — William Bennett

And I'm supposed to believe that Reagan was a great leader? This is who he chose as the Secretary of Education ... — William Bennett

Have we come to the point where it is now considered a secular blasphemy to acknowledge the name of God at all? — William Bennett

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. — William Bennett

The President is the symbol of who the people of the United States are. He is the person who stands for us in the eyes of the world and the eyes of our children. — William Bennett

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself.
The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? — William Bennett

The secretary of education does not work for the education establishment. The secretary works for the American people. — William Bennett

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. — William Bennett