George Will Quotes
Politics in a democracy is transactional: Politicians seek votes by promising to do things for voters, who seek promises in exchange for their votes.
Quotes to Explore
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Social Security is not just another government spending program. It is a promise from generation to generation.
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Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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The two million or so residents who live beneath the Heathrow flight path are accustomed to the noise. However, they are right to feel that any expansion would represent an unacceptable broken promise.
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Is America truly a democracy? Has America ever been a democracy with the institution of slavery?
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Where liberals see as an ever-more-splendid diversity of colors, creeds, ethnicities, ideologies, beliefs and lifestyles, the Right sees the disintegration of a country, a nation, a people, and its replacement with a Tower of Babel. Visions in conflict that democracy cannot reconcile.
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From my intimate discussions with President Obama, it is evident that India figures significantly in American geo-political, economic and strategic thinking. India is the largest democracy in the world.
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Democracy is the road to socialism.
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Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
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We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation... but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America.
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The western mindset erroneously equates a political system of multi-party democracy with high-quality institutions... the two are not synonymous.
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Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I'll be right there with you as a citizen - inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.
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No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy - well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I'm President, I never will.
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Too many people expect wonders from democracy, when the most wonderful thing of all is just having it.
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'The Sea Wolf' is the story of a man who believes only in brute force. He is so firm in belief in his own ideas that he despises all who disagree with him. He preaches the doctrine of intolerance. He flaunts the notion that democracy is anything but weakness.
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Our right to disagree is precious but fragile. The best way to protect and preserve it is to let the other side speak without demonizing them or destroying their right to be heard. Such civil exchanges are the heart beat of democracy - essential to keeping it alive.
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Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
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In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!
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Our democracy has been around far longer than European democracy.
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Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.
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Virtually all ideologues, of any variety, are fearful and insecure, which is why they are drawn to ideologies that promise prefabricated answers for all circumstances.
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A mathematician of the first rank, Laplace quickly revealed himself as only a mediocre administrator; from his first work we saw that we had been deceived. Laplace saw no question from its true point of view; he sought subtleties everywhere; had only doubtful ideas, and finally carried the spirit of the infinitely small into administration.
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You're terrified that nothing will ever give you the fulfillment that dancing has given you.
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I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.
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Politics in a democracy is transactional: Politicians seek votes by promising to do things for voters, who seek promises in exchange for their votes.
