If you want to understand your government, don’t begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today’s statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National
—George Will
Topics: Government
Whatever right the Second Amendment protects is not as important as it was 200 years ago… The government should deconstitutionalize the subject by repealing the embarrassing Amendment.
—George Will
As advertising blather becomes the nation’s normal idiom, language becomes printed noise.
—George Will
Topics: Advertising, Language
Americans are overreaching; overreaching is the most admirable and most American of the many American excesses.
—George Will
Topics: Excess
Today more Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses than for property crimes
—George Will
Topics: Criminals, Crime
Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.
—George Will
The four most important words in politics are ‘up to a point.’
—George Will
Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.
—George Will
Topics: Sports
Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
—George Will
Topics: Just for Fun, Football
It is no longer enough to be lusty. One must be a sexual gourmet.
—George Will
Topics: Desires
Pessimism is as American as apple pie. Frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese.
—George Will
Topics: Pessimism
She is so totally absorbed in a vocation—both a gift and a mastering passion—that she has no time to be absorbed with the self’s worries about itself. And that is the moral of the story: You can pursue happiness by wearing a torn jersey. You can catch it by being good at something you love.
—George Will
Topics: Passion
All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are “up to a point.”
—George Will
Topics: Politics
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal
—George Will
Topics: Baseball
The future has a way of arriving unannounced.
—George Will
Topics: Future, Carpe-diem
It is said that God gave us memory so we could have roses in winter. But it is also true that without memory we could not have self in any season. The more memories you have, the more you have. That is why, as Swift said, “No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
—George Will
Topics: Memory
Voters don’t decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.
—George Will
Topics: Voting
I say statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, most legislation is moral legislations because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres in life.
—George Will
Topics: Ethics
A politician’s words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.
—George Will
Topics: Politics, Politicians, Audiences
Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.
—George Will
Topics: Politics, Politicians
We are given children to test us and make us more spiritual.
—George Will
Topics: Children
A disquieting era of genetic manipulation is coming, one that may revolutionize human capacities, and notions of health. If we treat moral scruples impatiently, as inherently retrograde in a scientifically advancing civilization, we will not be in moral trim when, soon, our very humanity depends on our being in trim.
—George Will
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
—George Will
Topics: Pessimism, Optimism
Actually, there is only one “first question” of government, and it is “How should we live?” or “What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?”
—George Will
Topics: Ethics
Long before Einstein told us that matter is energy, Machiavelli and Hobbes and other modern political philosophers defined man as a lump of matter whose most politically relevant attribute is a form of energy called “self-interestedness.” This was not a portrait of man “warts and all.” It was all wart.
—George Will
Topics: Selfishness, Self-interest
Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country; President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs.
—George Will
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
If your job is to leaven ordinary lives with elevating spectacle, be elevating or be gone.
—George Will
Topics: Royalty, Queens, Kings
They are supposed to be dispassionate dispensers of Pure Justice, icy islands of emotionless calculation. In short, umpires should be acute Republicans
—George Will
Topics: Baseball
The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.
—George Will
Topics: Perfection, Perfectionism
Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it.
—George Will
Topics: Childhood
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
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- Marilyn vos Savant American Columnist
- Franklin P. Adams American Journalist
- John Mason Brown American Drama Critic
- George Matthew Adams American Columnist
- William F. Buckley, Jr. American Conservative Editor
- Glenn Beck American Mormon Children’s Books Writer
- Pauline Phillips (Abigail van Buren) American Advice Columnist
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