No human being will work hard at anything unless they believe that they are working for competence.

As long as acquiring knowledge is the educational goal of schools, educational opportunities will be limited, as they are now, to affluent families.

Without pay, no human being will work up to their ability if he or she is not cared for and respected.

Running a school where the students all succeed, even if some students have to help others to make the grade, is good preparation for democracy.

Good or bad, everything we do is our best choice at that moment.

To focus on discipline is to ignore the real problem: We will never be able to get students (or anyone else) to be in good order if, day after day, we try to force them to do what they do not find satisfying.

They have this big book called the 'DSM-IV,' you know, that is supposedly written about crazy people, but I think it is a book that is written by crazy people!