The English Language Amendment says above all, 'Let's see to it that our children, our young people, learn English. Let us not deny them the opportunity to participate in American life, so that they can go as far as their dreams and talents can take them.

Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting.

Language is a unifying instrument which binds people together. When people speak one language they become as one, they become a society.

Ever since man began to till the soil and learned not to eat the seed grain but to plant it and wait for harvest, the postponement of gratification has been the basis of a higher standard of living and of civilization.

The United States, a land of immigrants from every corner of the world, has been strengthened and unified because its newcomers have historically chosen ultimately to forgo their native language for the English language. We have all benefited from the sharing of ideas, of cultures and beliefs, made possible by a common language. We have all enriched each other.

If everybody is rewarded just for being alive, you get the same sort of effect as you do when you reward every student just for being enrolled. You destroy not only education, you destroy society by giving A's to everyone. This is a philosophical consideration that bothers me very much as I sit in the United States Senate and see the great budget allocations going through.

Definitions, contrary to popular opinion, tell us nothing about things. They only describe people's linguistic habits; that is, they tell us what noises people make under what conditions.