Mark Twain Quotes

Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn't have to put them in prisons?

If we do not pay for children in good schools, then we are going to pay for them in prisons and mental hospitals.

As a former high school teacher, I know that investing in education is one of the most important things we can do, not only for our children, but for the benefit of our whole community.

Young children were always so important to me. Adults should treat children with more respect. We should put more monies in our schools. I grew up on that side of the coin.

Look, we ought to do this for our kids... We ought to have a high school so that every kid who grows up here - they're all our kids - gets a good high school education.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

I got a way to get through to kids. I try to take that and use that to my advantage. If we work on the kids right now, I'm telling you, they'll be making less mistakes, the jails will be gettin' less full. It's all about what we do with the kids.

It is incumbent upon all of us to build communities with the educational opportunities and support systems in place to help our youth become successful adults.

Our society spends a lot of money on prison bars. For the sake of our kids, let's invest in monkey bars.

For every jail that Mr. Nixon would build, Mr. Humphrey would also build a house. For every policeman Mr. Wallace would hire, Mr. Humphrey would also hire a good teacher.

Coloradans want to take the long view and invest in our state's future. We know that to do this, we cannot neglect our schools.

Many black youths are defying stereotypes, achieving good academic results, finding employment and contributing to their communities. But helping those who fall behind is not an exercise in political correctness, it is a precisely what a compassionate - and sensible - state should concern itself with.

So if you want a really effective criminal justice strategy, you don't build bigger prisons, you invest money in young kids - and you accept that it's going to take years to work through, but it's a more effective strategy.

As I have pointed out time and again, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to send little kids to school than it is to let them grow up into young thugs who have to be sent to prison, not to mention the savings in the wear and tear on the nerves, property, and safety of the rest of the citizenry.

We have to invest in our kids, we have to invest in our communities, we have to create jobs. We have to make certain that kids are not dropping out of school and hanging out on street corners.

I'd like to do something for inner-city schools and education for young people because it's constantly being cut.

Each and every child in this country is valuable because they are our future as a society. We cannot afford to lose a single child to ill-health, under-education, abuse, addiction, jail, or gun violence. America's highest goal should be for every child to grow up to be a successful young adult -- healthy, educated, free, secure, and a good citizen.

I don't want to send them to jail. I want to send them to school.

If every school would hire two more music teachers, we would need two fewer police officers.

We're spending, on average, three times more for prison than for public-school pupils. That's the dumbest investment policy. It doesn't make us safer.

Every time you have an opportunity of opening a school, its fee and funding is really relatively small in comparison with the big expenditure, which is basically quote unquote defense. I think if there were fees, progress could be very much faster. But for that we need not only the government in different countries to understand it but the society to put pressure on it, the parents to understand that their desire to have their children educated can actually be realized, and it could make a dramatic difference.

Let us be clear. Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.

I work closely with a number of charities from food pantries to drug rehabilitation to natural disaster relief to preventing sexual exploitation of young girls. It is one of the most rewarding things I do.