49 Quotes by William J. 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.

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.’

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

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.

There is nothing more influential in a child’s life than the moral power of quiet example. For children to take morality seriously they must see adults take morality seriously.

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.

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.

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

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