The American Patriot's Almanac Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know. . . .”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

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

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“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.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“IN A WORLD STILL RULED BY KINGS, President George Washington’s decision to not seek a third term clearly signaled that the United States would be governed by the people, not any ruler-for-life.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“The Constitution has guaranteed freedom, equality, opportunity, and justice to hundreds of millions of people. It is the oldest written constitution still in effect and has become a model for nations around the world.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“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.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“Americans prize individualism—an outlook that stresses the moral worth and capabilities of each person, as opposed to systems that put faith in centralized, socialistic control. Ralph Waldo Emerson summed up this way of thinking in his essay Self-Reliance: There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“1948 President Truman signs legislation establishing the Marshall Plan.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“The first public gas streetlight in the United States is lit in Baltimore, Maryland.”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America

“History is a ribbon, always unfurling. History is a journey. And as we continue our journey, we think of those who traveled before us . . .”
― William J. Bennett, The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America