George Will Quotes - Page 4

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• Americans complain a lot about the government and they voice a generalized suspicion of the government, but they constantly clammer for more of it.

  George Will

  Government, Voice, Complaining

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• What the federal government does basically is borrow money from people and mail it to people.

  George Will

  Government, People, Doe

  1993 Of entitlement programs. ABC TV broadcast, 19 Sep.

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• One radical free spirit nonconformist is pretty much like another.

  George Will

  Free Spirit, Spirit, Radical

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• 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

  Writing, People, Political

  "Religion and the American Republic". www.nationalaffairs.com. Summer 2013.

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• We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge

  George Will

  Knowledge, Science, Civilization

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• The most important business of one generation is the raising of the next generation. Nothing else you do in life will be as deeply satisfying.

  George Will

  Important, Generations, Next

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• Since the emergence of the Republican Party, only two Democratic presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, have been followed by Democrats, and both FDR and JFK died in office, so their successors ran as incumbents.

  George Will

  Party, Two, Office

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• 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

  Wise, Memories, Winter

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• Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it.

  George Will

  Business, Childhood, Fatherhood

  George F. Will (1983). “The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions”, Touchstone

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• The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism.

  George Will

  Wall, Achievement, Berlin

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• We are suffering from a kind of slow-motion barbarization from within.

  George Will

  Christian, Religious, Suffering

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• Conservatives believe government's principal functions are the preservation of freedom and removal of restraints on the individual. Liberalism's ascent in the first two-thirds of this century reflected the new belief that government should also confer capacities on individuals. Liberalism's decline in the final third of this century has reflected doubts about whether government can be good at that, or whether government that is good at that is good for the nation's character.

  George Will

  Believe, Character, Government

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• Fish have got to swim. Birds have got to fly, and Clintons have to run for office. It's what they do. It's a metabolic urge. That's all they've done their entire life is borrow money from rich people to seek public office.

  George Will

  Running, People, Office

  "Dan Pfeiffer previews State of the Union, 2014 agenda; Sen. Mitch McConnell on GOP efforts to retake the Senate". "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace", www.foxnews.com. January 26, 2014.

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• If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.

  George Will

  Country, Strong, Government

  George F. Will (2010). “Restoration”, p.167, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

• Nationalism is blamed for this century's wars, but nationalism need not mean militarism. And the nation-state has been the laboratory of liberty.

  George Will

  War, Mean, Liberty

  George F. Will (1992). “Suddenly: The American Idea Abroad and at Home, 1986-1990”

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• Freedom is the silence of the law.

  George Will

  Law, Silence

  George F. Will (1998). “The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America's Fabric”, Free Press

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• The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.

  George Will

  Media, Political, Culture

  George Will (2008). “One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation”, p.175, Crown Forum

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• Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophic baggage other than a fervent belief in their right to the pursuit of happiness.

  George Will

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Light, Littles

  George F. Will (1978). “The pursuit of happiness, and other sobering thoughts”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking - a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations.

  George Will

  Grateful, Class, Political

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• That is the crux of modern conservatism - government taking strong measures to foster the attitudes and aptitudes necessary for increased individual independence.

  George Will

  Strong, Attitude, Government

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• Greek philosophers considered sport a religious and civic-in a word, moral-undertaking. Sport, they said, is morally serious because mankind's noblest aim is the loving contemplation of worthy things, such as beauty and courage.

  George Will

  Sports, Religious, Greek

  George F. Will (2010). “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball”, p.2, Harper Collins

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• Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.

  George Will

  Political, Mediocrity, Politics

  "Embracing Your Inner Mediocrity: Making Peace with Reality". Book by Vince Stone, 2009.

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• We have 3,141 counties in this country. That would be 20 per county. The idea that we can't assimilate these 8-year-old criminals with their teddy bears is preposterous.

  George Will

  Country, Years, Ideas

  "Rep. Scalise talks GOP agenda, border crisis; Benjamin Netanyahu and Hanan Ashrawi on conflict in Gaza". "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. July 27, 2014.

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• As society becomes more complex and opaque, as social processes seem more impersonal and autonomous, and as elites of 'experts' become more annoying, more people are tempted to think that some 'they' is manipulating 'us', using, among other dark arts, advertising.

  George Will

  Art, Dark, Thinking

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• 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

  Important, Spheres, Ethics

  George F. Will (1984). “Statecraft as Soulcraft”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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