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William F. Buckley, Jr. Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Conservatives should be adamant about the need for the reappearance of Judeo-Christianity in the public square.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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Skepticism about life and nature is most often expressed by those who take it for granted that belief is an indulgence of the superstitious — indeed their opiate, to quote a historical cosmologist most profoundly dead. Granted, that to look up at the stars comes close to compelling disbelief — how can such a chance arrangement be other than an elaboration — near infinite — of natural impulses? Yes, on the other hand, who is to say that the arrangement of the stars is more easily traceable to nature, than to nature's molder? What is the greater miracle: the raising of the dead man in Lazarus, or the mere existence of the man who died and of the witnesses who swore to his revival?
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.
The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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I think Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology — with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress, and in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge.
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.
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Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in your goddamn face and you'll stay plastered.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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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.
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The most casual student of history knows that, as a matter of fact, truth does not necessarily vanquish. … The cause of truth must be championed, and it must be championed dynamically.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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One must recently have lived on or close to a college campus to have a vivid intimation of what has happened. It is there that we see how a number of energetic social innovators, plugging their grand designs, succeeded over the years in capturing the liberal intellectual imagination. And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things. Run just about everything. There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals'.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Quote of the day
No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.
Edvard Munch
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Born:
November 24, 1925
Died:
February 27, 2008
(aged 82)
Bio:
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator.
Known for:
God and Man at Yale (1951)
Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography (2004)
Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith (1997)
Saving the Queen (1976)
Marco Polo, if You Can (1982)
Most used words:
drugs
life
power
society
truth
intellectual
americans
class
live
education
man
effective
conformity
social
state
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Gore Vidal
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Christopher Buckley (novelist)
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James L. Buckley
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