George F. Will Quotes

The grossest, the cruelest, the most selfish, the most easily pervertible and perverted thing in this world, is government.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.

The average politician was crooked. That was my ambition, to be a crooked politician. I'd see them in these restaurants, and they'd all hold these conferences. I'd see politicians who were supposed to be on opposite sides of issues all together at one table.

Give politicians power and it certainly will be abused eventually - if not by today's politicians, then by their successors.

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

Big institutions in this imperial state, in this evil US empire, prepare their politicians to become criminals.

Congress: America's only true criminal class.

When I came to Washington, I was troubled to observe so many similarities between the behaviors of drug-addicted patients and my political colleagues. In Washington power is like morphine.

There is nothing the political establishment will not do - no lie that they won't tell, to hold their prestige and power at your expense. And that's what's been happening.

Politicians are leeches, mostly.

The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power.

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.

There are, perhaps, few men who can for any length of time enjoy office and power without being more or less under the influence of feelings unfavorable to the faithful discharge of their political duties.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.

Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.

When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.

Easy money, sudden fortunes, increasingly powerful political machines and blatant corruption transformed much of the nation; and the Senate, as befits a democratic legislative body, accurately represented the nation.

Abuse of power comes as no surprise

The storm center of lawlessness in every American State is the State Capitol. It is there that the worst crimes are committed; it is there that lawbreaking attains to the estate and dignity of a learned profession; it is there that contempt for the laws is engendered, fostered, and spread broadcast.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.

Secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power, . . . its enabling force. Transparency is the only real antidote.

If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements,corrupts even more.

Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one.