George Will Quotes
More George Will Quotes
The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail. The administration's central activity – the political allocation of wealth and opportunity – is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”
George Will— Column, May 14, 2009, "Tincture of Lawlessness" at realclearpolitics.com.
What the federal government does basically is borrow money from people and mail it to people.
George Will— 1993 Of entitlement programs. ABC TV broadcast,19 Sep.
The cost of appearing with a bloviating ignoramus is obvious, it seems to me. Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics.
George Will— George Will on This Week, ABC, 27 May 2012 , quoted in Tapper, Jake (27 May 2012), "George Will Calls Donald Trump a ‘Bloviating Ignoramus’", ABC News
Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings
George Will— International Herald Tribune (7 May 1990)
This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant.
George Will— Column, May 9, 1996, "FDR's memorial hides character" at baltimoresun.com.
When liberals' presidential nominees consistently fail to carry Kansas, liberals do not rush to read a book titled "What's the Matter With Liberals' Nominees?" No, the book they turned into a bestseller is titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Notice a pattern here?
George Will— Column, September 14, 2006, "Dems Vs. Wal-mart" at jewishworldreview.com.
Reformers desperate to resuscitate taxpayer funding [of elections] cite the supposedly scandalous fact that each party's 2008 presidential campaign may spend $500 million. If so, Americans volunteering to fund the dissemination of speech about candidates for the nation's most consequential office will contribute $1 billion, which is about half the sum they spend annually on Easter candy. Some scandal.
George Will— Column, September 28, 2006, "Checkout for an Undemocratic Checkoff" at jewishworldreview.com.
A decrease in the quantity of legislation generally means an increase in the quality of life.
George Will— Column, December 23, 2007, "The Gift Of Doing Very Little" at washingtonpost.com.
The people do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide.
George Will— Column, January 15, 2009, "Of Judges, By Judges, For Judges" at jewishworldreview.com.
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
George Will— The Leveling Wind: politics, the culture, and other news, 1990-1994 (c. 1994), Will, Viking ; as cited in Quotable Quotes (1997), Editors of Reader’s Digest, Penguin ISBN 1606525956, 9781606525951
I grew up in central Illinois midway between Chicago and St. Louis and I made an historic blunder. All my friends became Cardinals fans and grew up happy and liberal and I became a Cubs fan and grew up embittered and conservative.
George Will— Interview with Ken Burns in the PBS documentary Baseball
Machiavelli, however, took his bearings from people as they are. He defined the political project as making the best of this flawed material. He knew (in words Kant would write almost three centuries later) that nothing straight would be made from the crooked timber of humanity.
George Will— Speech at Washington University, Danforth Center for Religion and Politics, St. Louis, broadcast (4 December 2012)
Taking offense has become America’s national pastime; being theatrically offended supposedly signifies the exquisitely refined moral delicacy of people who feel entitled to pass through life without encountering ideas or practices that annoy them.
George Will— Column, May 7, 2014 : "Thin skins and legislative prayer" at washingtonpost.com.
Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
George Will— Columnist on politics and domestic and foreign affairs
The future has a way of arriving unannounced.
George Will— American conservative political commentator
Geology has joined biology in lowering mankind's self-esteem. Geology suggests how mankind's existence is contingent upon the geological consent of the planet.
George Will— from a review of Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa (2003), as quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations (rev. 2005), ed. Rawson & Miner, Oxford University Press, p. 600 ISBN 0195168232, 9780195168235
If, after the Foley episode – a maraschino cherry atop the Democrat’s delectable sundae of Republican miseries – the Democrats cannot gain 13 seats, they should go into another line of work.
George Will— Column, October 5, 2006, "What Goeth Before the Fall" at jewishworldreview.com.
When a politician says, concerning an issue involving science, that the debate is over, you may be sure the debate is rolling on and not going swimmingly for his side.
George Will— Column, February 26, 2014, "The liberal agenda: Being good to liberals" at washingtonpost.com'.
