One Man's America Quotes

“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, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Because of demagogues, rhetoric has a tainted reputation in our time. However, rhetoric is central to democratic governance. It can fuse passion and persuasion, moving free people to freely choose what is noble.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“National Review's premise was that conformity was especially egregious among the intellectuals, that herd of independent minds.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“The almost-always-ghastly exclamation point has been lately compared to canned laughter.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“The most capricious modern entitlement is not just Social Security but to self-esteem.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Institutions are lengthening shadows of strong individuals.”
― George Will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“In this snug, over-safe corner of the world… we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous, untamed and streaming world.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Matthew Arnold was a fastidious social critic and hence an accomplished complainer. When he died, an acquaintance said: "Poor Matt, he's going to Heaven, no doubt – but he won't like God.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Get evangelical Christian made them receptive to the possibility of redemption in the here and now.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Gifted teachers master the patience required for the unending business of transmitting civilization down the generations, transforming biological facts – children – into social artifacts called citizens. It is wearying work and it is a wonder teachers can summon the stamina for it.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Author complains about "the further submergence of irrecoverable history into a perpetually churned present.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Government could avoid having opinions about so many things if it would quit subsidizing so many things.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“The columnist gives these words to the longings of an 11-year-old he meets with Tourette's syndrome: "Wisdom is encoded in our common language. We all have, to some extent, a complex, sometimes adversarial, relationship with our physical selves. And I more than most people know that it is correct to say,'I have a body.' There is my body, and then there is ME, trying to make it behave.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Nothing is so irretrievably lost to a society as the sense of fear it felt about a grave danger that was subsequently coped with.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

“Good actors, including political actors, do not deal in unrealities. Rather, they create realities that matter – perceptions, aspirations, allegiances.”
― George will, One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation