Quotes from William J. Bennett

The first public gas streetlight in the United States is lit in Baltimore, Maryland.

Who among you would teach your boys that ease, that peace is to be the first consideration in your eyes—to be the ultimate goal after which they strive? You men of Chicago have made this city great, you men of Illinois have done your share, and more than your share, in making America great, because you neither preach nor practice such a doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons to work.

Government has important work to do, but in the task of helping society remain intact, much work takes place in the families, neighborhoods, churches, temples, schools, and voluntary groups that make communities good, healthy places to live. Individual

Americans are a people of commerce. We are good at business. Freedom and capitalism have made the United States the greatest economic power on earth. The conviction that anyone, with hard work, can make a better life for himself is an American article of faith. Abraham Lincoln identified the vitality of this commercial republic in 1856 when he said, "The man who labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year he will hire others to labor for him.

George Washington Goethals as the canal's new chief engineer

The last great dispute of the era was a heavily theological affair between Hippolytus, one of the most influential theologians at Rome, and Callistus, the bishop of that city.

Wherein you reprove another be unblamable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precept.

Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of anyone.

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.

Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

James Madison takes up the question of whether a relatively small number of legislators can be trusted to safeguard the public liberty. Such a system can work, Madison argues, as long as the political and moral responsibilities of the people remain intact. Democracy presupposes the virtue of its individual citizens.

conceive that the people of America, in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of, sixty-five or a hundred men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery

Dear Pie: I feel very strongly about your doing duty. Would you give me a little more documentation about your reading in French? I am glad you are happy—but I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the printed page, they never really happen to you in life.

I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true," Walt Disney said. "This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence.

Limited government that protects rights and freedoms is another important ingredient. For example, it is government's job to protect property rights, keep markets as free and fair as possible, and oppose discrimination in the workplace.

In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, setting off an upheaval that eventually split Christendom in two. Luther accused religious officials of being more concerned with money and power than saving souls, and challenged the Church to reform itself.

People who have no trouble advocating that cigarette commercials be banned from the airwaves on the grounds that they encourage young people to smoke should think again about the degree to which all people, and especially young people, take the media's well-crafted, market-tested messages to heart.

Behold, into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time! And withal, after such audacious acts, they, lost to all shame, attempt to call themselves a Catholic Church!

Fortune turns like a wheel. One man it lifts, another it sets down! Does not the old man grieve over all he has lost?" "Who can tell? He lives quietly and peacefully, and works well.

Teddy Roosevelt said that "far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man who, under a certain religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and, omitting all compliments and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty.

This is what I think about it: My old man and I lived for fifty years seeking happiness and not finding it; and it is only now, these last two years, since we had nothing left and have lived as laborers, that we have found real happiness, and we wish for nothing better than our present lot.

Fabian, the bishop of Rome, was decapitated. Julian, a Christian in Cilicia, in Turkey, was stuffed into a leather bag with a number of serpents and scorpions and then thrown into the ocean.

In 250, Decius required that all citizens of the empire must perform a public sacrifice to the emperor. This sacrifice had to be performed with a Roman magistrate as an eyewitness, and a certificate (a libellus) that the task was done had to be issued as well.