Top 15 George Will Quotes

Orwellian is an overused adjective, but here it applies. In 1948 Orwell said watch the language because it becomes turned inside out. In Nineteen Eighty-Four love meant hate, war meant peace and on campus today diversity means enforced conformity.

In the immediate aftermath of the heroic rescue of soldiers from Dunkirk, Winston Churchill addressed the British as adults, reminding them that ‘wars are not won by evacuations.’

When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.

I’m a big believer in parties, in party strength and party tickets. Not this year.

George Will: That's right.

Susan Page: First time you've ever voted for a Democrat for president.

Susan Page: Have you voted for a Democrat before?

George Will: Oh yes.

: Who do you plan to vote in November?

Progressives understand that their program for a government-centered society becomes more plausible the more people believe that work—individual striving—is unavailing. Government grows as fatalism grows, and fatalism grows as progressivism inculcates in people the demoralizing—make that de-moralizing—belief that they are victims of circumstances.

I believe the most important decision taken anywhere by anyone in the 20th century was the decision about where to locate the Princeton Graduate College. President of the University Thomas Woodrow Wilson wanted it down on the campus, integrated with the undergraduate college. His nemesis, Dean Andrew Fleming West, wanted it where it now is, up on a little hill overlooking the Princeton golf course. President Woodrow Wilson had one of his characteristic snits, resigned as president, went into politics and ruined the 20th century.

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.

The family is the primary transmitter of social capital – the values and character traits that enable people to seize opportunities. Family structure is a primary predictor of an individual's life chances, and family disintegration is the principal cause of the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

Someone who is determined to disbelieve something can manage to disregard an Everest of evidence for it.

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.