George Will

The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.

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.

Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.

Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.

The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.

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?

The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of america is justice and securing the blessings of liberty.

They are supposed to be dispassionate dispensers of Pure Justice, icy islands of emotionless calculation. In short, umpires should be acute Republicans.

Semicolons . . . signal, rather than shout, a relationship. . . . A semicolon is a compliment from the writer to the reader. It says: "I don't have to draw you a picture; a hint will do."

Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.

The strongest continuous thread in America's political tradition is skepticism about government.

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.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

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.

The best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering disappointments.

There may be more poetry than justice in poetic justice.

Political ignorance helps explain Americans' perpetual disappointment with politicians generally, and presidents especially, to whom voters unrealistically attribute abilities to control events.

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.

Sports is a moral undertaking because it requires of participants, and it schools spectators in the appreciation of, noble things - courage, grace under pressure, sportsmanship.

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

Big government inevitably drives an upward distribution of wealth to those whose wealth, confidence and sophistication enable them to manipulate government.