“The people do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide.”
Column, January 15, 2009, "Of Judges, By Judges, For Judges" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will.html at jewishworldreview.com.
2000s
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George Will 28
American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author 1941Related quotes
“People who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
Variant: Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.
“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.”
Though widely attributed to Hillary on the internet, this appears to have originated as a quote about him in a Rolex advertisement.
Disputed
“Now it is no longer a matter of deciding what to do, but of deciding how to decide.”
Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 1 : Introduction : Our Schizoid World, p. 15
“You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.”
Free Will
Variant: You can do what you decide to do—but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.
Tessa Gray, to Clary Fray, pg. 716
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)
Context: I feel a kinship with you, too, you who have lost both brother and father. I know you have been judged and spoken of as the daughter of Valentine Morgenstern, and now the sister of Jonathan. There will always be those who want to tell you who you are based on your name or the blood in your veins. Do not let people decide who you are. Decide for yourself. That freedom is not a gift; it is a birthright. I hope that you and Jace will use it.
“The price of freedom is to decide moral and political issues.”
Interview in Deia (1 September 2012)
Same-sex marriage case in court: Attorney John Bursch https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/23/sex-marriage-case-court-attorney-john-bursch/26277577/ (April 23, 2015)
Context: Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
