Civilization depends on, and civility often requires, the willingness to say, 'What you are doing is none of my business' and 'What I am doing is none of your business.'
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of respecting personal boundaries and the distinction between individual privacy.
George Will's quote reflects a fundamental aspect of civilized society: the necessity of mutual respect for one another's personal affairs. By acknowledging that what each person does is their own concern, individuals foster an environment of civility that allows for personal freedom and reduces unnecessary conflict. It is a reminder that understanding our limits in engaging with others' lives is crucial for harmonious relationships.
In practice
In a speech about community living, one might say this quote to emphasize the need for personal boundaries.
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?
Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
When I read obituaries I always note the age of the deceased. Automatically I relate this figure to my own age. Four years to go, I think. Nine more years. Two years and I'm dead. The power of numbers is never more evident than when we use them to speculate on the time of our dying.
By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, and what to those we give, to Jove is lent.
My thesis topic was 'The value of a human life.' I asked people a question: 'Suppose you had some risk, a one in a thousand risk of dying - how much would you pay to eliminate it?'
To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
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