William F. Buckley, Jr.
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'Collection: History
All adventure is now reactionary.Collection: Experience
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.Collection: Money
There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.Collection: Independence
I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.Collection: Intelligence
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.Collection: Government
I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.Collection: Intelligence
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.
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for.
Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
It seems to me that the idea traditionally defended of endeavoring to maintain existing ethnic balances simply doesn't work any more.
I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
We love your adherence to democratic principles.
It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!
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.
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.
I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.
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.
The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.
Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.
One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.
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.
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.
To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue.
Some of my instincts are reprehensible.
Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.
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.Collection: Views
I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. 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 arived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives busy, and Liberals at bay. And the nation free.Collection: Life
In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.Collection: Independent
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.Collection: Names
The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love.Collection: Order
If only the left hated crime as much as they hated hate.Collection: Hate
The duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world, and the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.Collection: Struggle
Conservatism is the politics of realityCollection: Reality
Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise.Collection: Government
What was wrong with communism wasn't aberrant leadership, it was communism.Collection: Political
Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore themCollection: People
He [Cassius Clay] became a Black Muslim, which is a pseudo-religion for unbright neurotics who feel the need to hate all white people.Collection: Hate
Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.Collection: Government
The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.Collection: House
The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).Collection: Art
... to say that the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.Collection: Men
You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.Collection: Life Time
Louis Kelso of San Francisco, a lawyer-economist, has for years felt that he has a radical answer to the problem.Collection: Years
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.Collection: School
The Beatles are not merely awful. I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful.Collection: Say Anything
...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.Collection: New York
Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman.Collection: Saint