William J. Bennett > Quotes

“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 no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing up against your legs and jumping into your lap.”
― William J. Bennett

“There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.”
― William J. Bennett, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals

“A falsehood can run around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on.”
― Bill Bennett

“The essence of education is, in the words of William James, to teach a person what deserves to be valued, to impart ideals as well as knowledge, to cultivate in students the ability to distinguish the true and good from their counterfeits and the wisdom to prefer the former to the latter.”
― William J. Bennett, Choosing the Right College: The Whole Truth about America's Top Schools

“Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order,”
― William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989

“American soldiers were dying in frigid Korea. One of our greatest generals told us that the president and his team were not trying to win. And some strident voices were saying that that was because they didn't want to win,”
― William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989

“John Stuart Mill, the British philosopher, said, “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood

“and line of cases. Justice Byron R. "Whizzer" White, a JFK appointee, dissented, calling Doe an act of "raw judicial power," as it took these decisions from the states and enshrined their determination in the Supreme Court's reasoning.”
― William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989

“While the Bible was the definitive reference point for settling questions of doctrine and practice, questions not clearly settled by Scripture that were of theological importance were numerous (and difficult), and churches could not always look to precedents in church history as a guide. The difficulty of resolving disputes is evident in an even more serious controversy from the late second century.”
― William J. Bennett, Tried by Fire: The Story of Christianity's First Thousand Years

“One good way to understand what conservatism is really about is to use the acronym FLINT to remember five core concepts: Free enterprise, Limited government, Individual liberty, National defense, and Traditional values. These five principles are a good summary of conservative thought in America today.”
― William J. Bennett, America the Strong: Conservative Ideas to Spark the Next Generation

“Eisenhower has been much criticized for his failure publicly to endorse the Court's decision. But he felt that doing so would set an undesirable precedent. If a president endorsed decisions he agreed with, might he feel compelled to oppose decisions he did not agree with? And what would that do to the rule of law? "The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold ... the constitutional processes.... I will obey."3”
― William J. Bennett, From a World at War to the Triumph of Freedom 1914-1989

“Simply put, war restores in man the belief that there are some things worth fighting and dying for; things like love, liberty, and faith.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood

“Therefore we must give a certain character to our activities. . . . In short, the habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“There is no end to the good you can do if you don’t care who gets credit for it.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“The day Americans stop viewing explicit patriotism as a virtue and begin to view it as something “eccentric and foolish” is the day we cease to be a great country.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“For half a century we sought happiness,” Elias’s wife says in this story, “and as long as we were rich we never found it. Now that we have nothing left, and have taken service as laborers, we have found such happiness that we want nothing better.” This simple yet profound story is a good one for anybody choosing a career, job, or task. There’s certainly nothing wrong with working to get money, but there may be something very wrong if you think getting the money gets you happiness.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“We Americans are so good at critiquing our own nation, so determined to make it better, that sometimes we neglect to acknowledge all that is wonderful about it. Let us not commit the sin of ingratitude for so many blessings.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“At the end of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a Philadelphia lady asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” It takes a nation of patriots to keep a republic. Especially this republic. The United States, with all its might, isn’t likely to be conquered from the outside anytime soon. If American liberty loses its luster, the dimming will come from within. It will be due to our own lack of attention and devotion. Without patriotism, there cannot be a United States. It falls upon us—upon you and me—to take care of this miraculous American democracy, to make it work, to love it.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“Tis a lesson you should heed, Try, try again; If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try again; Then your courage should appear, For, if you will persevere, You will conquer, never fear; Try, try again.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“I asked God for strength, that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn to humbly obey. I asked for health, that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. I asked for riches, that I might be happy; I was given poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing I asked for but everything I had hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among men, most richly blessed.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood

“Play not the peacock, looking everywhere about you to see if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, if your stockings set neatly and clothes handsomely.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“Then Croesus was angry. “Why is it,” he asked, “that you make me of no account and think that my wealth and power are nothing? Why is it that you place these poor working people above the richest king in the world?” “O king,” said Solon, “no man can say whether you are happy or not until you die. For no man knows what misfortunes may overtake you, or what misery may be yours in place of all this splendor.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“But every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plain dealing, and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“Robert Louis Stevenson Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places— That was how, in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages. But the unkind and the unruly, And the sort who eat unduly, They must never hope for glory— Theirs is quite a different story! Cruel children, crying babies, All grow up as geese and gabies, Hated, as their age increases, By their nephews and their nieces.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“George Washington Goethals as the canal’s new chief engineer”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“The great American novelist Herman Melville makes the Aristotelian point beautifully in a telling passage in Moby-Dick, where Starbuck, the chief mate of the Pequod, first addresses the crew. “ ‘I will have no man in my boat,’ said Starbuck, ‘who is not afraid of a whale.’ By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.”
― William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

“where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile!”
― William J. Bennett, Tried by Fire: The Story of Christianity's First Thousand Years