Download
When you have bought the game, you can download the stand-alone launcher for Minecraft here. It will automatically update the game files with the latest version. You'll be able to play the game without an Internet connection if you've been online at least once.
Minecraft for Windows
Download Minecraft.exe. Place it anywhere you want, then run it.
Minecraft for Mac OS X
Download Minecraft.dmg.
Minecraft for Linux / Other
Download Minecraft.jar (86 KB). The jar is executable and should work as-is, also please use Oracle's JVM.
The Minecraft launcher was updated 01 July 2013. To get latest version of the game, make sure that you have downloaded the latest version of the launcher from the link above.
Multiplayer Server
If you're running on Windows and just want to set up a server easily, download minecraft_server.1.7.2.exe and run it.
If you want to run the server on any other OS or without GUI it's a bit more involved (see this wiki article for a tutorial). First make sure you can use java from the command line. On Linux and Mac OS X this should already be set up but on Windows you might have to tinker with the PATH environment variable. Download and run minecraft_server.1.7.2.jar with java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui.
Older versions
Some older systems will not be able run the latest Minecraft launcher, because of this the old launcher is still available for download below.
Please note: With the old launcher you will not be able to play any version past 1.5.2.