1. Top Famous Quotes
    2. /
  2. William F Buckley Jr Quotes

Top William F Buckley Jr Quotes

Browse top 41 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by William F Buckley Jr.

Favorite William F Buckley Jr Quotes

1. "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.
2. "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.
3. "National Review will support the rightwardmost viable candidate." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
4. "Pentagon ought to win the Nobel Peace Prize every year, because the U.S. military is the world's foremost guarantor of peace" ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
5. "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.
6. "The wisest choice would be the one who would win. No sense running Mona Lisa in a beauty contest. I'd be for the most right, viable candidate who could win. If you could convince me that Barry Goldwater could win, I'd vote for him. [1967]" ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
7. "Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them" ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
8. "How can one deduce the cause of "Hamlet" or "Saint Matthew's Passion"? What is the cause of inspiration?" ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
9. "...my beloved Eudosia [a member of Buckley's household staff], who is Cuban, very large, quite old, and altogether superstitious, and speaks only a word or two of English (even though she has been with us for 19 years), is quite certain that the gentleman who raped the 16-year-old girl in New Caanan three years ago and escaped has successfully eluded the police only because of his resourceful determination to ravage Eudosia before he dies. Accordingly she demanded, and I gave her, a shotgun, into which I have inserted two empty shells. Still, Eudosia with blank cartridges is more formidable than Eugene McCarthy with The Bomb." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
10. "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.
11. "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.
12. "They [progressives] 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.
13. "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.
14. "Our political economy and our high-energy industry run on large, general principles, on ideas — not by day-to-day guess work, expedients and improvisations. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative; and the medium of such exchange is the printed word." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
15. "To fail to experience gratitude when walking through the corridors of the Metropolitan Museum, when listening to the music of Bach or Beethoven, when exercising our freedom to speak, or ... to give, or withhold, our assent, is to fail to recognize how much we have received from the great wellsprings of human talent and concern that gave us Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, our parents, our friends. We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us, living and, mostly, dead. The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and in our prayers; and in our deeds." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
16. "The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
17. "I had much more fun criticizing than praising." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
18. "Industry is the enemy of melancholy" ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
19. "Conservatives should be adamant about the need for the reappearance of Judeo-Christianity in the public square." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
20. "The obvious differences apart, Karl Marx was no more a reliable prophet than was the Reverend Jim Jones. Karl Marx was a genius, an uncannily resourceful manipulator of world history who shoved everything he knew, thought, and devised into a Ouija board from whose movements he decocted universal laws. He had his following, during the late phases of the Industrial Revolution. But he was discredited by historical experience longer ago than the Wizard of Oz: and still, great grown people sit around, declare themselves to be Marxists, and make excuses for Gulag and Afghanistan." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
21. "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.
22. "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.
23. "There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don't believe hissuccessor would re-enunciate the words he used in hissecond inaugural address because they were too ambitious.So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
24. "It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!" ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
25. "All adventure is now reactionary." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
26. "Some of my instincts are reprehensible." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
27. "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.
28. "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.
29. "I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
30. "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.
31. "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.
32. "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.
33. "The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
34. "Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
35. "I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
36. "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.
37. "It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
38. "One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
39. "I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
40. "The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it." ~ William F. Buckley Jr.
41. "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.

William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes Pictures

William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes
William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes
William F. Buckley Jr. Quotes

Today's Quote

Amamos a aquellas personas que destilan una extraña esencia, que es la que nos falta para tener un compuesto químico equilibrado."
Author: André Maurois

What Did William F. Buckley Jr. Talk About?

Ear
Con
Use
Era
Lit
Per
Here
Ring
Cause
Thou
Able
Nation
Bee
Ten
Hen
End
Act
Run
Sit
Wit
Thin
Year
King
List
Old
Word
Though
Liberal
Lie
Owe
Action
Pen
Gave
Ought
Leg
Dust
Quit
Tan
Tie
Cent
Win
View
Speak
Govern
Large
Idea
Social
Rather
Sin
Quite

Famous Authors

Popular Topics

Copyright © 2021 Top Famous Quotes. All Rights Reserved. | About Us | Topic List | Author List | Privacy Policy | Contact Us |