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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.'

George Will

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George Will
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: May 4
Columnist
Journalist
Champaign
Illinois
George F. Will
George Frederick Will
Business
Life
Civility
Willingness
Requires
None
Civilization
Depends
Often

More quotes by George Will

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Good biology without good philosophy will be a calamity.
George Will
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There can be no reasonable right to live on sidewalks. Society needs order, and hence has a right to a minimally civilized ambience in public spaces. Regarding the homeless, this is not merely for aesthetic reasons because the anesthetic is not merely unappealing. It presents a spectacle of disorder and decay that becomes a contagion.
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Football brings out the sociologist that lurks in some otherwise respectable citizens. They say football is a metaphor for America's sinfulness.
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Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophic baggage other than a fervent belief in their right to the pursuit of happiness.
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In the annals of American blunders, the Bay of Pigs may have been even more feckless, and the invasion of Iraq more costly, but we cannot yet calculate the cost of teaching Iran and others, by our role in the casual overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi, the peril of not having nuclear weapons.
George Will
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The cost of appearing with a bloviating ignoramus is obvious, it seems to me. Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics.
George Will
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America is the only developed nation that has a 2,000-mile border with a developing nation, and the government's refusal to control that border is why there are an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona and why the nation, sensibly insisting on first things first, resists 'comprehensive' immigration reform.
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Term limits would make Congress bolder, more independent, and less risk-averse.
George Will
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Hyperbole expands in societies where articulateness atrophies.
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Creative semantics is the key to contemporary government it consists of talking in strange tongues lest the public learn the inevitable inconveniently early.
George Will
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Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
George Will
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The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.
George Will
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Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.
George Will
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Whatever right the Second Amendment protects is not as important as it was 200 years ago... The government should deconstitutionalize the subject by repealing the embarrasing Amendment.
George Will
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I am opposed to term limits because if we did not have seasoned professionals, we would not have the good government that we have.
George Will
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Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.
George Will
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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.
George Will
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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.
George Will
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Baseball is Heaven's gift to mortals.
George Will
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The Soviet Union tried for 70 years to plant Marxism with bayonets in Eastern Europe. Today there are more Marxists on the Harvard faculty than there are in Eastern Europe.
George Will