William F. Buckley, Jr. Quotes

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.

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

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.

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other 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.

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.

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.

The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

If only the left hated crime as much as they hated hate.

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.

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.

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

Conservatism is the politics of reality

Only government can cause inflation, preserve monopoly, and punish enterprise.

What was wrong with communism wasn't aberrant leadership, it was communism.

Decent people should ignore politics, if only they could be confident that politics would ignore them

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'

The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle 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).

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.

You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters.

... 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.

People are beginning to wish that the voters had been given breathometer tests when they voted in the present government.

Not everything that is legal is reputable.