William F. Buckley, Jr. Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

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.
National Review... 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.
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).

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.
Idealism is fine; but as it approaches reality, the cost becomes prohibitive.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Every day, in every way, things are getting worse and worse.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Everything I do and say and the way I do and say it annoys me.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
It is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
It was rumored, in 1946, that the hangman in Nuremberg adjusted the nooses of some of the condemned to magnify the pain of suffocation. Such sadism was not called for then and is not called for now. But if fornication is wrong, there is no denying that it can bring pleasure. The death of Saddam Hussein at rope's end brings a pleasure that is undeniable, and absolutely chaste in its provenance.

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.
I've always subconsciously looked out for the total Christian and when I found him he turned out to be a non-practicing Jew.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
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 arrived 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.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise.

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.
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.

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.
Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness....

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 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.
A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent's argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue - which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paralogist has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands.

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.
The cost of the drug war is many times more painful, in all its manifestations, than would be the licensing of drugs combined with intensive education of non-users and intensive education designed to warn those who experiment with drugs.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
Those who suffer from the abuse of drugs have themselves to blame for it. This does not mean that society is absolved from active concern for their plight. It does mean that their plight is subordinate to the plight of those citizens who do not experiment with drugs but whose life, liberty, and property are substantially affected by the illegalization of the drugs sought after by the minority.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
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.
Treatment is not now available for almost half of those who would benefit from it. Yet we are willing to build more and more jails in which to isolate drug users even though at one-seventh the cost of building and maintaining jail space and pursuing, detaining, and prosecuting the drug user, we could subsidize commensurately effective medical care and psychological treatment.

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.
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.