William F. Buckley, Jr. famous quotes

03-30-2025

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Self #Self Reliance #States
I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Use #Connections #Income
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.

#Sight #Order #Liberty
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.

#Government #Boston #People
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Freedom #Government #Democracy
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Yelling #Political #Politics
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 ***** all afternoon.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Work #Creating #Feelings
You know, Iâ€™ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Life Time
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.

#Lying #Marijuana #Law
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.

#People #Caves #Want
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.

#Views #Giving #Want
...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.

#New York #Party #Broken
The principal sponsors of the terrorists are not religious fanatics. "Palestine's Yasser Arafat, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Syria's Assad family have made themselves the icons of Islamism despite the fact that they are well-known atheists who live un-Muslim lives and have persecuted unto death the Muslim movements in their countries."
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Country #Religious #Atheist
History is but the polemics of the victor.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#History #Polemics
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.

#People #Rich #Poor
I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Believe #Insult #Comeback
It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Bombs #Rooms #Target
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.

#Hate #White #People
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.

#Talking #Views #Hearing
Boredom is the deadliest poison.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Blessing #Boredom #Poison
One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Mind #Bears #Expansion
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 people's freedom and security.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#People #Survival #Politics
They are men and women who tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason; that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable, and should be scientifically eliminated; that all people and societies strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Believe #Men #Two
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.

#School #Men #Rights
The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Jobs #Powerful #Preparation
Industry is the enemy of melancholy
-- William F. Buckley, Jr.

#Enemy #Melancholy
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.

#New York #Definitions #Plight

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