George Will quotes

George Will is an American political commentator and author, renowned for his conservative analysis and elegant prose style. His columns and essays have shaped public debate on politics, culture, and governance for decades. He continues to be a leading voice in American journalism and political thought. Here are 108 of his quotes:

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.

George Will

Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.

George Will

A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.

George Will

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

The future has a way of arriving unannounced.

George Will

Americans are overreaching; overreaching is the most admirable and most American of the many American excesses.

George Will

A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible "lifestyles" turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind.

George Will

This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant.

George Will

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

For Conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.

George Will

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.

George Will

Pessimism is as American as apple pie - frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese.

George Will

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

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.

George Will

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

Being elected to Congress is regarded as being sent on a looting raid for one's friends.

George Will

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

George Will

Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it.

George Will

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

The realistic way to reduce the amount of money in politics is to reduce the amount of politics in money -- the importance of government in allocating wealth and opportunity.

George Will

Look, three love affairs in history, are Abelard and Eloise, Romeo and Juliet and the American media and this President at the moment. But this doesn't matter over time. Reality will impinge. If his programs work, he's fine. If it doesn't work, all of the adulation of journalists in the world won't matter.

George Will

Leadership is, among other things, the ability to inflict pain and get away with it - short-term pain for long-term gain.

George Will