Explore Quotes by George Will

Arizona's law makes what is already a federal offense - being in the country illegally - a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona's right to assert concurrent jurisdiction.

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.

Voters cannot hold officials responsible if they do not know what government is doing, or which parts of government are doing what.

I suppose there's a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it's the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom.

If your job is to leaven ordinary lives with elevating spectacle, be elevating or be gone.

Politics in a democracy is transactional: Politicians seek votes by promising to do things for voters, who seek promises in exchange for their votes.

Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.

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

Political nature abhors a vacuum, which is what often exists for a year or two in a party after it loses a presidential election.

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

Perhaps the soundest advice for parents is: Lighten up. People have been raising children for approximately as long as there have been people.

The future has a way of arriving unannounced.

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

Freedom means the freedom to behave coarsely, basely, foolishly.

Childhood is frequently a solemn business for those inside it.

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

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.

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

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

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.

As advertising blather becomes the nation's normal idiom, language becomes printed noise.