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I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition. I asked myself the other day, "Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?" I couldn't think of anyone. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The traces to the East haven been broken, the Republican party will never again be dominated by the editorial writers for the New York Herald Tribune. Free at last. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
When it is not possible to reason with holy warriors, it is necessary to immobilize them or crush them. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
He [Cassius Clay] became a Black Muslim, which is a pseudo-religion for unbright neurotics who feel the need to hate all white people. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I would sooner be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand members of the faculty of Harvard. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
But how reassuring it was for us, you remember, every now and then ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"), to vibrate to the music of the very heartstrings of the Leader of the Free World who, to qualify convincingly as such, had after all to feel a total commitment to the Free World. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
It is widely known that whenever Senator Johnson feels the urge to act the statesman at the cost of a little political capital," WFB wrote in June 1958, "he lies down until he gets over it. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Birch fallacy is the assumption that you can infer subjective intention from objective consequence: we lost China to the Communists, therefore the President of the United States and the Secretary of State wished China to go to the Communists. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Arlen Specter is the man who voted in favor of Bill Clinton during impeachment, voted against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, voted against school choice for the District of Columbia, endorses an absolutist interpretation of abortion rights. He is bright and he is tough and he belongs elsewhere. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Enthusiasm for conservation can be fashioned into a nasty weapon for those who dislike business on general principles. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
We view our atomic arsenal as proudly and as devotedly as any pioneer ever viewed his flintlock hanging over the mantel as his children slept, and dreamed. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other peoples' freedom and security. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Christianity finds all its doctrines stated in the Bible, and Christianity denies no part, nor attempts to add anything to the Word of God. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Conservatism is the tacit acknowledgement that all that is finally important in human experience is behind us; that the crucial explorations have been undertaken, and that it is given to man to know what are the great truths that emerged from them. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I catch fire and find the reserves of courage and assertiveness to speak up. When that happens I get quite carried away. My blood gets hot my brow wet I become unbearably and unconscionably sarcastic and bellicose I am girded for a total showdown. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Bobby Kennedy and Nelson Rockefeller are having a row, ostensibly over the plight of New York's mentally retarded, a loose definition of which would include everyone in New York who voted for Bobby Kennedy or Nelson Rockefeller. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but too brittle to be lifted out of the showcase. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
As a businessman, Frank Lorenzo gives capitalism a bad name. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I would like to take you seriously but to do so would affront your intelligence. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The real threat, as seen by the ACLU, is that religious behavior might give secular behavior a bad name, and that is, surely, unconstitutional. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Professor Galbraith is horrified by the number of Americans who have bought cars with tail fins on them, and I am horrified by the number of Americans who take seriously the proposals of Mr. Galbraith. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Industry is the enemy of melancholy -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Mr. Rockefeller is due to entertain munificently at breakfast, and make his pitch. My advice to one invited guest was: Order caviar, and then say No. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness ... -- William F. Buckley Jr.
There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don't believe his
successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his
second inaugural address because they were too ambitious.
So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Presley brought an excitement to singing, in part because rock and roll was greeted as his invention, but for other reasons not so widely reflected on: Elvis Presley had the most beautiful singing voice of any human being on earth. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past century, democratically bankrupt, Communist-infiltrated from top to bottom. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
We love your adherence to democratic principles. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
If Bach is not in Heaven, I am not going! -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The sobering anwer is yes - the white community is so entitled because ... it is the advanced race ... it is more important ... to affirm and live by civilized standards ... than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The New York Times, whose editorial department sounds like Cotton Mather rewriting Eleanor Roosevelt ... -- William F. Buckley Jr.
A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
What was wrong with communism wasn't aberrant leadership, it was communism. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Some of my instincts are reprehensible. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
[The] act of gratitude is nowadays is probably more often neglected than overdone. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
A capitalist is someone who derives a substantial share of his income from his equity in producing companies. On this scale the figures are discouraging. Approximately ninety percent of the capital of this country is owned by five or less percent of the American people. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop! -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it and one is the feeling that I haven't just been sitting on my ass all afternoon. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
He was a conservative all right, but invariably he gave the impression that he was a conservative because he was surrounded by liberals; that he had been a revolutionist if that had been required in order to be socially disruptive. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
You know, I've spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
No one since the Garden of Eden - which the serpent forsook in order to run for higher office - has imputed to politicians great purity of motive. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
People are beginning to wish that the voters had been given breathometer tests when they voted in the present government. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
for December 19 and for a day or two bracketing the -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Now it is one thing to say I say it that people shouldn't consume psychoactive drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws, the application of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Not everything that is legal is reputable. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign, -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I grew up, as reported, in a large family of Catholics without even a decent ration of tentativeness among the lot of us about our religious faith. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
[D]emocracy can itself be as tyrannical as a dictatorship, since it is the extent, not the source, of government power that impinges on freedom.
-William F Buckley -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I had much more fun criticizing than praising. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target! -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Friendship is strengthened by ... that which ever so lightly elevates us from the trough of self-concern and self-devotion. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Conservatives should be adamant about the need for the reappearance of Judeo-Christianity in the public square. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Before there was Ronald Reagan there was Barry Goldwater, and before there was Barry, there was National Review , and before there was National Review there was Bill Buckley with a spark in his mind. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
If he was, somehow at the margin deficient, it was because the country did not rise to ask of him the performance of a thunderbolt. He gave what he was asked to give. And he leaves us (or "will leave") if not exactly bereft, lonely; lonely for the quintessential American. END. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Reagan is both too fatalistic and too modest to be a crudaser. He doesn't have that darkness around the eyes of a George McGovern. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
One doesn't read Jane Austen; one re-reads Jane Austen. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I find it easier to believe in God than to believe Hamlet was deduced from the molecular structure of a mutton chop. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Khrushchev murders people without regard to race, color, or creed, and therefore whatever he is guilty of, he is not guilty of discrimination? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I've always believed that conservatism is the politics of reality, and that reality ultimately asserts itself in a reasonably free society, in behalf of the conservative position. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
If only the left hated crime as much as they hated hate. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
What would happen if the Communists occupied the Sahara? Answer: Nothing - for 50 years. Then there would be a shortage of sand. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Self-control is one of the most exhilarating of pleasures. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Liberals don't care what you do so long as it's compulsory. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Human progress is achieved by taking exact measurements. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The majority of the senior class of Vassar does not desire my company and I must confess, having read specimens of their thought and sentiments, that I do not desire the company of the majority of the senior class of Vassar. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
What yells out at the US public ... is the incandescent hypocrisy of so many people who, in the name of free speech, persecute its practitioners if their opinions are conservative. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The Beatles are not merely awful. I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
We are, always, reminded of the old saw: What would happen if the Soviet Union took over the Sahara Desert? Answer: Nothing for 50 years. After that there would be a shortage of sand. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The Beatles are not merely awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Following Mrs. Roosevelt in search of irrationality was like following a burning fuse in search of an explosive. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
To Buckley, she embodied the worst of what in subsequent decades would be called political correctness: the mindless application to every issue of a platitudinous egalitarianism whose practical effect invariably is to expand the reach of totalitarianism. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The police can't use clubs or gas or dogs. I suppose they will have to use poison ivy. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Everything I do and say and the way I do and say it annoys me. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
France believes in armed intervention by America only when the intervention is in France to rescue France from occupation by other powers. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
History is but the polemics of the victor. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Why does baloney avoid the grinder? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
It seems to me that the idea traditionally defended of endeavoring to maintain existing ethnic balances simply doesn't work any more. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Earlier this month the State Department gave the umpteenth performance of its popular play, Please Tread on Me, with Ceylon as guest star, and the usual cast. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Conservatism is the politics of reality -- William F. Buckley Jr.
How can one deduce the cause of "Hamlet" or "Saint Matthew's Passion"? What is the cause of inspiration? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Louis Kelso of San Francisco, a lawyer-economist, has for years felt that he has a radical answer to the problem. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
For people who like that sort of thing, that's the sort of thing they like. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
All adventure is now reactionary. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common needle users, and on the buttock, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Boredom is the deadliest poison. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them -- William F. Buckley Jr.
To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Did you know that forty percent of the words used by Shakespeare were used by him only once? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
She [Ayn Rand] had to declare that....altruism was despicable, that only self-interest is good and noble. (About Ayn Rand) -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Why should any country continue, forever, to be "great"? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Nobody who's ever been to Gulag is a pacifist. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
There is a man who has won the decathlon of human existence."* -- William F. Buckley Jr.
A society is not 'free' merely because the freedoms the people are doing away with are those they voted at the last election to do without. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed - different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgement of defeat. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
But is God a Yale man? -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Conservatism aims to maintain in working order the loyalties of the community to perceived truths and also to those truths which in their judgment have earned universal recognition. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Kennedy after all has lots of glamour - Gregory Peck with an atom bomb in his holster. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians. -- William F. Buckley Jr.
The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it. -- William F. Buckley Jr.